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Toulouse

Toulouse (, ; Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, 150 km from the Mediterranean Sea, 230 km from the Atlantic Ocean and 680 km from Paris. It is the fourth-largest city in France after Paris, Marseille and Lyon, with 504,078 inhabitants within its municipal boundaries (2021); its metropolitan area has a population of 1.5 million inhabitants (2021). Toulouse is the central city of one of the 22 metropolitan councils of France. Between the 2014 and 2020 censuses, its metropolitan area was the third fastest growing among metropolitan areas larger than 500,000 inhabitants in France.

Toulouse is the centre of the European aerospace industry, with the headquarters of Airbus, the SPOT satellite system, ATR and the Aerospace Valley. It hosts the CNES's Toulouse Space Centre (CST) which is the largest national space centre in Europe, but also, on the military side, the newly created NATO space centre of excellence and the French Space Command and Space Academy. Safran, Thales Alenia Space, Airbus Defence and Space, Collins Aerospace and Liebherr-Aerospace also have a significant presence in Toulouse.

The air route between Toulouse–Blagnac and the Parisian airports is the busiest in France, transporting 3.2 million passengers in 2019. According to the rankings of L'Express and Challenges, Toulouse is the most dynamic French city.

Founded by the Romans, the city was the capital of the Visigothic Kingdom in the 5th century and the capital of the province of Languedoc in the Late Middle Ages and early modern period (provinces were abolished during the French Revolution), making it the unofficial capital of the cultural region of Occitania (Southern France). It is now the capital of the administrative region of Occitania, the second largest region in Metropolitan France.

The University of Toulouse is one of the oldest in Europe (founded in 1229). Toulouse is also the home of prestigious higher education schools, notably in the field of aerospace engineering. Together with the university, they have turned Toulouse into the fourth-largest student city in France, with a university population of nearly 140,000 students.

Toulouse counts three UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Canal du Midi (designated in 1996 and shared with other cities), and the Basilica of St. Sernin, the largest remaining Romanesque building in Europe, designated in 1998 along with the former hospital Hôtel-Dieu Saint-Jacques because of their significance to the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route. The city's unique architecture made of pinkish terracotta bricks has earned Toulouse the nickname La Ville rose ("The Pink city").

Geography
Toulouse is in the south of France, north of the department of Haute-Garonne, on the axis of communication between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The city is about 100 km from the Pyrenees and the borders with Andorra and Spain.

Hydrography
The city is traversed by the Canal de Brienne, the Canal du Midi, the Canal de Garonne and the rivers Garonne, Touch and Hers-Mort.

Climate
Toulouse has a four-season humid subtropical climate (Cfa in the Köppen climate classification). Too much precipitation during the summer months prevents the city from being classified in the Mediterranean climate zone.

Early history
The Garonne Valley was a central point for trade between the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic since at least the Iron Age. The historical name of the city, Tolosa (Τολῶσσα in Greek, and of its inhabitants, the Tolosates, first recorded in the 2nd century BC), is of unknown meaning or origin, possibly from Aquitanian or Iberian, but it has also been connected to the name of the Gaulish Volcae Tectosages, or to the same root as Irish tulach or Welsh twlch, (little hill).

Toulouse refounded by the Romans on the banks of the Garonne
Tolosa enters the historical period in the 2nd century BC, when it became a Roman military outpost. After the conquest of Gaul, it was developed as a Roman city in Gallia Narbonensis. Under the reign of Emperor Augustus and thanks to the Pax Romana, the Romans moved the city a few kilometres from the hills where it was an oppidum to the banks of the Garonne, which were more suitable for trade.

In the second half of the 1st century, the emperor Domitian distinguished Toulouse by placing it under the patronage of the goddess Pallas Athena, so that the Latin poets Martial, Ausonius and Sidonius Apollinaris called the city Palladia Tolosa (Palladian Toulouse), a term that was still used in the Renaissance and even today when the city is presented as propitious to the arts and letters.

Around the year 250, Toulouse was marked by the martyrdom of Saturnin, the first bishop of Toulouse. This episode illustrates the difficult beginnings of Christianity in Roman Gaul.

Capital of the Visigothic kingdom
In the 5th century, Toulouse fell to the Visigothic kingdom and became one of its major cities, even serving as its capital, before it fell to the Franks under Clovis in 507 during the Battle of Vouillé. From that time, Toulouse was the capital of Aquitaine within the Frankish realm.

Under Frankish rule
In 721, Duke Odo of Aquitaine defeated an invading Umayyad Muslim army at the Battle of Toulouse. Many Arab chroniclers consider that Odo's victory was the real stop to Muslim expansion into Christian Europe, incursions of the following years being simple raids without real will of conquest (including the one that ended with Charles Martel's victory at the Battle of Tours, also called the Battle of Poitiers).

The Frankish conquest of Septimania followed in the 750s, and a quasi-independent County of Toulouse emerged within the Carolingian sub-kingdom of Aquitaine by the late 8th century. The Battle of Toulouse of 844, pitting Charles the Bald against Pepin II of Aquitaine, was key in the Carolingian Civil War.

County of Toulouse

Charlemagne had created the county of Toulouse in 778 to guard the border of Muslim Spain, but the disintegration of the kingdom of Aquitaine and the weakness of royal power in the following centuries led to the de facto independence of the county of Toulouse and many provinces.

In the 11th and 12th centuries, southern France was still steeped in Latin culture. Unlike the north of France, justice followed written Roman law and the nobles were highly educated. This was the time of the troubadours who wrote their poetry in Occitan (called "Provençal" at the time), then one of the most sophisticated languages in Europe. Like the other great lords of the Midi, the counts of Toulouse maintained and favoured these poets, this is how Count Raymond V employed for some time the famous Bernard de Ventadour, expert in singing courtly love.

In 1096, Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, left with his army at the call of the Pope Urban II to join the First Crusade, of which he was one of the main leaders. This exodus of its warriors and nobles, reinforced by the creation of the faraway County of Tripoli by Raymond IV at the beginning of the 12th century, weakened the city militarily as well as the ascendancy that its counts had over it. The Duke William IX of Aquitaine challenged the possession of the city on the grounds that it should have been inherited by his wife Philippa (daughter of the previous count of Toulouse, whereas Raymond IV was only his brother). More than 50 years later his granddaughter Eleanor of Aquitaine still claimed the inheritance in vain.

In the 12th century the city left its Roman limits and a new district developed around the church of Saint-Sernin: the Bourg. The church of Saint-Sernin was famous and revered for its many relics, and the chapter of its canons, which had possessions as far away as Spain, was powerful enough to free itself from the control of the bishop of Toulouse. This dissent had important local political repercussions, making the Bourg in practice a separate district from the city. In 1152, the notables of Toulouse took advantage of a weakening of the county power to obtain for their city a great autonomy, they created a municipal body of consuls, called capitouls in Toulouse, to lead the city. The Bourg, which had only a quarter of the inhabitants of Toulouse, obtained as many capitouls as the rest of the city. Economically, Toulouse, which was at the center of a large cereal-growing plain, was distinguished by its numerous mills that took advantage of the force of the Garonne, among which the Bazacle Milling Company was the first recorded European joint-stock company.

The fight against Catharism and its various aspects
At the beginning of the thirteenth century the County of Toulouse was caught up in another crusade that would last twenty years (1209-1229), of which it was the target this time. The reason for this was the development of Catharism in the south of France, which the Pope Innocent III wanted to eradicate by all possible means.

After an initial victory of the crusaders led by Simon de Montfort who defeated the combined forces of Count Raymond VI of Toulouse and King Peter II of Aragon at the Battle of Muret, the following years saw the fate of the county of Toulouse swing alternately in favour of one party or the other. Finally, a late intervention by King Louis VIII of France in 1226 tipped the balance in favour of the crusaders, resulting in the submission of Count Raymond VII to the French Crown and the end of the independence of the County of Toulouse.

But beyond the military crusade, this struggle took on several important aspects for the city of Toulouse:
 * The Dominican Order was founded in Toulouse by Saint Dominic in 1215. Spanish priest Dominic de Guzmán wanted to convert the Cathars to Catholicism peacefully, by preaching and by living a poor and exemplary life. After years of criss-crossing the Lauraguais countryside between Carcassonne and Toulouse, he changed his method and decided to preach in town. In 1215 he settled in Toulouse and founded a mendicant order which, within a few decades, would cover Europe with hundreds of convents: The Order of Preachers, also known as the Dominicans.
 * Under the impulse of the bishop of Toulouse, Foulques, an original and austere architectural style was born in Toulouse, designed to break with the display of luxury of the Catholic church which drove the faithful towards the Cathars: the Southern French Gothic.
 * In the Treaty of Paris of 1229, Toulouse formally submitted to the crown of France. The county's sole heiress Joan was engaged to Alphonse, Count of Poitiers, a younger brother of Louis IX of France. The marriage became legal in 1241, but it remained childless and so after Joan's death, the county fell to the Crown of France by inheritance.
 * Another consequence of the Treaty of Paris was the creation of the University of Toulouse, established on the Parisian model, strongly sponsored by the pope and intended as a means to dissolve the heretic movement.
 * Also in 1229, the Council of Toulouse was held, which laid the foundations for the long period of Inquisition that was to eradicate Catharism in the region after the military victory of the Crusade.

Kingdom of France
In 1271, Joan of Toulouse and her husband Alphonse of Poitiers died without heirs. Toulouse, which since the treaty of 1229 had been subordinate to the kingdom of France, no longer had a count and was annexed to the royal domain. The installation of numerous royal officers and the development of trade and crafts, which favoured the social ascension of merchants, renewed the city's elites. In 1298, King Philip the Fair greatly facilitated the possibility of ennobling the capitouls, whose council, renewed every year, was increasingly made up of rich merchants.

The first half of the 14th century was a prosperous period, despite the dismemberment in 1317 of the very large bishopric of Toulouse (which lost two thirds of its area and a large part of its income, a loss only partially compensated by its elevation to the rank of archbishopric), and the episode of the Shepherds' Crusade which brought a pogrom against Toulouse's Jewish population in 1320. In 1335, Toulouse had between 35,000 and 40,000 inhabitants.

In 1323, the Consistori del Gay Saber was created in Toulouse to preserve the lyric art of the troubadours by organizing a poetry contest; and Toulouse became the centre of Occitan literary culture for the following centuries. The  Consistori is considered to be the oldest literary society in Europe, at the origin of one of the most sophisticated treatise on grammar and rhetoric of the Middle Ages, and in 1694 it was transformed into the Royal Academy of the Floral Games (Académie des Jeux Floraux), still active today, by king Louis XIV.

The 14th century also saw a significant increase in the influence of the University of Toulouse, particularly following the move of the papacy from Rome to Avignon. Many law graduates from the University of Toulouse had brilliant careers in the Avignon curia, several became cardinals and three became popes: John XXII, Innocent VI and Urban V. These powerful prelates financed the establishment of colleges in the university towns of southern France, not only Toulouse but also Montpellier, Cahors and Avignon.

The Black Death in 1348, then the Hundred Years' War caused a major crisis that lasted until the following century. Despite strong immigration, the population lost more than 10,000 inhabitants in 70 years. By 1405 Toulouse had only 19,000 people. In these hardships, the city was the key stronghold of the French defence in the south of France during the worst years of the Hundred Years' War, when the English troops from Aquitaine had taken Montauban and only Toulouse remained as an obstacle to their conquest of southern France. This military threat to the city and especially to the surrounding countryside was not conducive to its development, despite the strengthening of ties with the royalty that it entailed.

In 1369, pope Urban V attributed to the Dominican church of the Jacobins of Toulouse the bones of the Dominican theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas, perhaps to honor the city that had been the cradle of the Dominican order at the beginning of the previous century.

The political and economic situation improved by the middle of the 15th century. In 1443 King Charles VII established the second parliament of France after that of Paris. Reinforcing its place as an administrative and judicial center, the city grew richer, participating in the trade of Bordeaux wine with England, as well as cereals and textiles. A major source of income was the production and export of pastel, a blue dye made from woad.

Toulouse suffered several fires, but it was in 1463 that the Great Fire of Toulouse broke out, ravaging the city for fifteen days. After this dramatic event, King Louis XIII exempted the city from taxes for 100 years. The capitouls issued municipal decrees favouring the use of brick in buildings, rather than excessively flammable wood or cob.

In the 16th century, and until 1562, the economy of Toulouse experienced a golden age: its Parliament made it the judicial capital of a large part of southern France, and the city became the first European centre for the trade in woad, the only blue dye then known in Europe which was very much in demand in the textile industry at the time. Its humanist milieu developed thanks to its university and parliament, which trained and attracted intellectual elites. The wealth generated by this culturally and economically dynamic environment is the source of the superb Renaissance mansions in Toulouse. In 1550 the population of the city made it the second or third largest city in France. It was estimated to have 50,000 inhabitants, a figure it would not regain until the 18th century.

In 1562, the French Wars of Religion began and Toulouse became an ultra-Catholic stronghold in a predominantly Protestant region, the era of economic prosperity came to an end. The governor of Languedoc, Henri II de Montmorency, who had rebelled, was executed in 1632 in the Capitole in the presence of King Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu.

In 1666, Pierre-Paul Riquet started the construction of the Canal du Midi which links Toulouse to the Mediterranean Sea, and is considered one of the greatest construction works of the 17th century. Completed in 1681, the canal stimulated the economy of Toulouse by promoting the export of cereals and the import of olive oil, wine and other goods from the Mediterranean regions.

In the 18th century, Toulouse was a provincial capital that prided itself on its royal academies (the only city in France, along with Paris, to have three royal academies), but sometimes seemed far removed from the debates of ideas that agitated the Enlightenment. A famous example illustrates this backwardness of Toulouse mentalities of the time: in 1762 its powerful parliament sentenced Jean Calas to death. The philosopher Voltaire then accused the Parlement of Toulouse of religious intolerance (Calas was a Protestant), gave the affair a European repercussion and succeeded in having the judgment of the parliament quashed by the King's Council, which did much damage to the reputation of the parliament. It was on this occasion that Voltaire published one of his major philosophical works: his famous Treatise on Tolerance.

With the French Revolution of 1789 and the reform or suppression of all royal institutions, Toulouse lost much of its power and influence: until then the capital of the vast province of Languedoc, with a parliament ruling over an even larger territory, the city then found itself simply at the head of the single small department of Haute-Garonne.

19th century
On 10 April 1814, four days after Napoleon's surrender of the French Empire to the nations of the Sixth Coalition (a fact that the two armies involved were not yet aware of), the Battle of Toulouse pitted the Hispanic-British troops of Field Marshal Wellington against the French troops of Napoleonic Marshal Soult, who, although they managed to resist, were forced to withdraw. Toulouse was thus the scene of the last Franco-British battle on French territory.

Unlike most large French cities, there was no real industrial revolution in 19th century Toulouse. The most important industries were the gunpowder factory, to meet military needs, and the tobacco factory. In 1856 the railway arrived in Toulouse and the city was modernised: the ramparts were replaced by large boulevards, and major avenues such as the rue d'Alsace-Lorraine and the rue de Metz opened up the historic centre.

In 1875, a flood of the Garonne devastated more than 1,000 houses and killed 200 people. It also destroyed all the bridges in Toulouse, except the Pont-Neuf.

20th and 21st centuries
World War I brought to Toulouse (geographically sheltered from enemy attacks) chemical industries as well as aviation workshops (Latécoère, Dewoitine), which launched the city's aeronautical construction tradition and gave birth after the war to the famous Aéropostale, a pioneering airmail company based in Toulouse and whose epics were popularised by the novels of writers such as Joseph Kessel and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (himself an Aéropostale pilot).

In the 1920s and 1930s the rise of the Toulouse population was increased by the arrival of Italians and Spaniards fleeing the fascist regimes of their country. Then, in the early 1960s, French repatriates from Algeria swelled the city's population.

In 1963, Toulouse was chosen to become one of the country's eight "balancing Metropolis", regaining a position among the country's major cities that it had always had, but lost in the 19th century. The French state then encouraged the city's specialisation in aeronautics and space activities, sectors that had experienced strong growth in recent decades, fueling economic and population growth.

On 21 September 2001, an explosion occurred at the AZF fertiliser factory, causing 31 deaths, about 30 seriously wounded and 2,500 light casualties. The blast measured 3.4 on the Richter scale and the explosion was heard 80 km away.

In 2016, a territorial reform made Toulouse the regional prefecture of Occitanie, the second largest region in metropolitan France, giving it a role commensurate with its past as a provincial capital among the most important in France.

Population
The population of the city proper (French: commune) was 498,003 at the January 2020 census, with 1,470,899 inhabitants in the metropolitan area, up from 1,268,438 at the January 2009 census. Thus, the metropolitan area registered a population growth rate of +1.36% per year between 2009 and 2020, the third-highest growth rate of any French metropolitan area larger than 500,000 inhabitants in France, after Montpellier and Bordeaux, although it was slightly lower than the growth rate registered between the 1990 and 2009 censuses. Toulouse is the fourth most populated city in France, after Paris, Marseille and Lyon, and the fifth most populated metropolitan area after Paris, Lyon, Marseille, and Lille.

Fueled by booming aerospace and high-tech industries, the Toulouse metropolitan area's population grew by 57.3% between the 1990 and 2020 censuses (within its 2020 borders), which means +1.52% per year on average during those 30 years, compared with a growth of 15.3% for metropolitan France between 1990 and 2020, i.e. +0.48% per year. This was the second-highest population growth of any French metropolitan area larger than 500,000 inhabitants (only the Montpellier metropolitan area grew more than Toulouse between 1990 and 2019).

The Toulouse metropolitan area reached 1,470,899 inhabitants in January 2020, and stood as the 5th most populated metropolitan area in France, behind the metropolitan areas of Paris, Lyon, Marseille, and Lille, but ahead of the metropolitan area of Bordeaux, which the Toulouse metropolitan area passed in population in the 1990s.

A local Jewish group estimates there are about 2,500 Jewish families in Toulouse. A Muslim association has estimated there are some 35,000 Muslims in town.

Toulouse Métropole

The Community of Agglomeration of Greater Toulouse (Communauté d'agglomération du Grand Toulouse) was created in 2001 to better coordinate transport, infrastructure and economic policies between the city of Toulouse and its immediate independent suburbs. It succeeds a previous district which had been created in 1992 with fewer powers than the current council. It combines the city of Toulouse and 24 independent communes, covering an area of 380 km², totalling a population of 583,229 inhabitants (as of 1999 census), 67% of whom live in the city of Toulouse proper. As of February 2004 estimate, the total population of the Community of Agglomeration of Greater Toulouse was 651,209 inhabitants, 65.5% of whom live in the city of Toulouse. Due to local political feuds, the Community of Agglomeration only hosts 61% of the population of the metropolitan area, the other independent suburbs having refused to join in. Since 2009, the Community of agglomeration has become an urban community (in French: communauté urbaine). This has become a métropole in 2015, spanning 37 communes with 806,503 inhabitants in 2020 census.

Local politics

One of the major political figures in Toulouse was Dominique Baudis, the mayor of Toulouse between 1983 and 2001, member of the centrist UDF. First known as a journalist known for his coverage of the war in Lebanon, 36-year-old Dominique Baudis succeeded his father Pierre Baudis in 1983 as mayor of Toulouse. (Pierre Baudis was mayor from 1971 to 1983.)

Baudis tried to strengthen the international role of Toulouse (such as its Airbus operations), as well as revive the cultural heritage of the city. The Occitan cross, flag of Languedoc and symbol of the counts of Toulouse, was chosen as the new flag of the city, instead of the traditional coat of arms of Toulouse (which included the fleur de lis of the French monarchy). Many cultural institutions were created, in order to attract foreign expatriates and emphasise the city's past. For example, monuments dating from the time of the counts of Toulouse were restored, the city's symphonic concert hall (Halle aux Grains) was refurbished, a city theater was built, a Museum of Modern Art was founded, the Bemberg Foundation (European paintings and bronzes from the Renaissance to the 20th century) was established, a huge pop music concert venue (Zénith, the largest in France outside Paris) was built, the space museum and educational park Cité de l'Espace was founded, etc.

To deal with growth, major housing and transportation projects were launched. Line A of the underground was opened in 1993, and line B opened in 2007. The creation of a system of underground car parking structures in Toulouse city centre was sharply criticised by the Green Party.

In 2000, Dominique Baudis was at the zenith of his popularity, with approval rates of 85%. He announced that he would not run for a fourth (6-year) term in 2001. He explained that with 3 terms he was already the longest-serving mayor of Toulouse since the French Revolution; he felt that change would be good for the city, and that the number of terms should be limited. He endorsed Philippe Douste-Blazy, then UDF mayor of Lourdes as his successor. Baudis has since been appointed president of the CSA (Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel) in Paris, the French equivalent of the American FCC.

Philippe Douste-Blazy narrowly won in the 2001 elections, which saw the left making its best showing in decades. Douste-Blazy had to deal with a reinvigorated political opposition, as well as with the dramatic explosion of the AZF plant in late 2001.

In March 2004, he entered the national government, and left Toulouse in the hands of his second-in-command Jean-Luc Moudenc, elected mayor by the municipal council. In March 2008, Moudenc was defeated by the Socialist Party's candidate Pierre Cohen.

At the next elections in 2014 Moudenc defeated Cohen in a rematch to re-take the job with more than 52% of the votes, and he was re-elected with almost the same score in 2020.

Sights and architecture

Classified "City of Art and History", Toulouse has a very rich architectural heritage ranging from large Romanesque and Gothic churches to neo-classical facades such as that of the Capitole, to the prestigious mansions of the Renaissance. This ancient heritage is mainly enclosed within the 220 hectares of the city's inner boulevard (one of the largest protected urban areas in France).

Almost all the buildings of the historical centre were made with the traditional building material of the region: the "foraine" brick that has earned the city the nickname of Ville rose (Pink city). Medieval heir to the Roman brick, the "foraine" brick is characterised by its large dimensions, its flat appearance and its colour ranging from orange/pink to red.

White stone is also present in smaller quantities. As there were no stone quarries near Toulouse, it was transported from the Pyrenees via the Garonne river and was for a long time rare and therefore expensive, considered in Toulouse as a luxury material. However, it is enough to give Toulouse's architecture one of its characteristics: red/white polychromy.

Romanesque architecture (11th-12th c.)

The Romanesque architecture of Toulouse is largely dominated by the presence of the Basilica of Saint-Sernin, one of the most important churches of its time in Europe, and fortunate enough to keep its Romanesque character virtually intact.

Basilica of Saint-Sernin
Basilica of Saint-Sernin, part of the Way of Saint James UNESCO World Heritage Site, was also in itself a major place of pilgrimage. It is one of the two largest surviving Romanesque churches in Europe. With more than two hundred relics (including that of Saint Saturnin who gave his name to the church), many of which were donated by Charlemagne to the shrine that preceded the present church, Saint-Sernin is the church with the most relics after Saint Peter of Rome.

Conceived from the outset as a gigantic reliquary, the church was mainly built at the end of the 11th century and at the beginning of the 12th century to welcome the crowds of pilgrims, its double-sided aisles and the ambulatory surrounding the apse make it the archetype of the great pilgrimage church, where pilgrims could make the circuit around the church and were able to stop for meditation and prayer at the apsidal chapels of the transept and the radiating chapels of the choir. The church is also particularly noteworthy for the quality of its Romanesque sculptures, including numerous capitals and the historiated tympanum of the Miègeville gate, one of the first of its kind.

Southern French Gothic: a militant religious architecture
At the beginning of the 13th century, the Catholic clergy of the South of France, seeing a growing number of the faithful turning to the Catharism which advocated a more pious austerity, showed the will to correct the defects of the Catholic Church which indulged in luxury. Under the impulse of the bishop of Toulouse, Foulques, an austere and militant architectural style was born with the reconstruction of the Cathedral of Toulouse: the Southern French Gothic. Conceived according to an ideal of poverty and humility to bring the faithful together in a single, vast nave to facilitate preaching, this architectural style then developed during the 13th century in the grand mendicant convents of the city, before spreading in the 14th century to a large number of churches and cathedrals in the region.

Several churches or convents in Toulouse belong to this architectural trend, but two of them are particularly symbolic and remarkable:

 * Cathedral of Saint-Étienne (Saint Stephen) is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toulouse. Its construction, which was mainly done at the beginning and then at the end of the 13th century, reflects the history of this decisive century which saw the city lose its independence to become a French city. The single nave is the first example of Southern French Gothic, at 19 metres wide it probably was at its completion the widest in Western Europe (1210-1220). The higher choir that adjoins it was built in the Gothic style of northern France shortly after the city became part of the Crown of France in 1271.
 * Convent of the Jacobins (13th century / early 14th century) was the Dominican convent of Toulouse and is considered to be, together with the Albi Cathedral, the pinnacle of Southern French Gothic architecture. Like all Southern French Gothic churches it has a deliberately austere exterior, but on the inside its alignment of cylindrical columns form one of the tallest colonnades ever erected in Gothic architecture (28 metres high). The masterpiece of this church is the column that closes the choir (1275-1292), its palm tree shape was a hundred years ahead of the flamboyant gothic fan vaults. Because he thought that the bones of Saint Thomas Aquinas deserved «the most beautiful and most splendid surroundings», in 1368 Pope Urban V made the church of the Jacobins the burial place of the famous Dominican friar, one of the most notable philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages.

Gothic civil architecture
Toulouse has preserved about thirty Gothic stair towers (plus a dozen Renaissance or later towers), the remains of private mansions (called hôtels particuliers) from the Middle Ages and the early 16th century. Often hidden in courtyards, some of these towers are high enough to exceed their function of serving the floors and display the ambition of their owners.

At a time when most of the houses in Toulouse were built in wood or cob, the brick construction of these towers and hôtels also testifies to their quality.

Renaissance architecture (16th c.-early 17th c.)
In the 16th century, Toulouse experienced a golden age coinciding with the Renaissance in France. The woad trade (pastel) brought merchants of international stature to the city, and the Parlement of Toulouse made the city the judicial capital of a large part of the south of France. These wealthy elites had private mansions built, remarkable for their architecture inspired by architectural treatises such as those of Serlio, Alberti or Vitruvius, but also by the royal castles of the Loire Valley and the Île-de-France.

Renowned for the quality of their architecture, the private mansions of the Toulouse Renaissance that have survived to the present day were built over more than a century (around 1515–1620) by reputed architects such as Louis Privat, Nicolas Bachelier, Dominique Bachelier or Pierre Souffron. The most famous of these hôtels are those of Assézat, Bernuy, Vieux-Raisin or Clary...

17th century religious architecture
The French Wars of Religion, which started in the second half of the 16th century, brought to the city many religious orders who came to seek asylum in this solid Catholic bastion. They had baroque churches built in the 17th century: among them, the Order of Carthusians, expelled by the Protestants from the region of Castres, founded the church of Saint-Pierre des Chartreux, the order of the Discalced Carmelites built the church of Saint-Exupère, the blue penitents founded the church of Saint-Jérôme and the order of Carmelite nuns created a convent of which a remarkable painted chapel remains.

17th century civil architecture
After the Renaissance, the decorations in civil architecture became less numerous and ostentatious, due to the importance given to the moderation of the architectural structures and the development of interior decorations. The play of colours (between brick and stone) and reliefs (bossing) were less costly and nevertheless effective solutions for livening up facades. The 17th century is the century that gave Toulouse the largest number of its private mansions, most of them built by members of parliament.

18th century architecture
In the 18th century Toulouse made its living from its Parliament and from the wheat and corn trade, which was boosted by the creation of the Canal du Midi at the end of the previous century. Among the major architectural achievements, the most notable were undoubtedly the construction of the quays of the Garonne and the new facade of the Capitole (1750-1760), designed by architect Guillaume Cammas.

In the last third of the 18th century, the ever increasing influence of the Parisian model meant that red brick was no longer popular: the city facades were then whitewashed to imitate stone. This is why nowadays, even though the white paint has generally been removed, there are walls with deep grooves carved in brick to imitate ashlar architecture.

19th century architecture
Toulouse's 19th century architecture can be divided into three periods, which sometimes overlapped. In the first half of the century, at the instigation of architect Jacques-Pascal Virebent, the main architecturally unified squares were created: the Place du Capitole and the Place Wilson (called place Villeneuve when it was built), whose uniform architecture was inspired by Rue de Rivoli in Paris.

From 1830 onwards, Auguste Virebent and his brothers (sons of Jacques-Pascal) developed a factory of low-cost moulded decorations which met with great success and adorned Toulouse facades with numerous terracotta ornaments, far from the austere architecture of their father.

Then, in the last third of the 19th century, large Haussmann-style avenues were opened in the town centre, such as the central Alsace-Lorraine street, built in yellow brick to imitate Parisian stone.

20th and 21st centuries architecture
From the middle of the 19th century, the arrival of the railway in Toulouse facilitated the supply of stone and made it cheaper for construction, and architects did not hesitate to play on the old traditional Toulouse codes linked to the prestige of stone construction, even if these no longer had the economic justification of yesteryear. Thus, at the beginning of the 20th century, the main railway station was built entirely in white stone.

Subsequently, concrete replaced the traditional materials, but brick and stone were still used for cladding, as shown recently by the work of prestigious architects such as Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown for the seat of the departmental council, or Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell for the Toulouse School of Economics building.

Banks of the Garonne, Canal du Midi, parks
The banks of the Garonne river offer an interesting urban panorama of the city. Red brick dykes from the 18th century enclose the river which was subject to destructive floods. The Pont-Neuf took almost a century to build as the project was so ambitious (1545-1632). It was a very modern bridge for its time, removing the housing on the deck and using techniques such as lowered arches, openings in the piers and stacked spouts to spread the water, making it the only bridge in Toulouse to withstand the violent floods of the past. Further downstream, the Bazacle is a ford across the Garonne river, in the 12th century the Bazacle Milling Company was the first recorded European joint-stock company. On the left bank of the river, historically a flood-prone bank, stand two former hospitals whose origins date back to the 12th century: the Hôtel-Dieu Saint-Jacques and the Hôpital de La Grave. Isolated on the left bank, victims of the plague and other sick people were thus kept away from the city by the width of the river.

Built at the end of the 17th century, the Canal du Midi bypasses the city centre and has linked Toulouse to the Mediterranean Sea ever since. Its 240 kilometres were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.

The Jardin des Plantes, the Grand Rond and the Jardin Royal form a set of adjacent parks that span several blocks and include the Museum of Natural History, cafés, children's activities and a botanical garden (18th-19th century). The Prairie des Filtres, the Raymond VI garden and the Japanese garden are other interesting parks that border the center of Toulouse.

Museums and theme parks
Toulouse has many museums, the most important of which are:
 * Musée des Augustins is the fine arts museum of Toulouse, it is located in the former Augustinian convent.
 * Bemberg Foundation, housed in the Hôtel d'Assézat, presents to the public one of the major private collections of art in Europe.
 * Musée Saint-Raymond is the archeological museum of Toulouse, located in a former college of the university it presents the ancient history of Toulouse and a very rich collection of Roman sculptures from the imperial Roman villa of Chiragan.
 * Musée Paul Dupuy is the museum of Decorative Arts and Graphic Arts, including a very rich collection of clocks and watches.
 * Musée Georges Labit is dedicated to artifacts from the Far-Eastern and Ancient Egyptian civilizations.
 * Muséum de Toulouse is one of the most important natural history museums in France, housed in the former convent of the Discalced Carmelites.
 * Les Abattoirs is the museum of modern and contemporary art of the city, opened in a former municipal slaughterhouse.

Economy
Since 2003, Toulouse has been the French city with the fastest growing GDP per capita, a performance driven by growing high-tech industries.

Toulouse economy can rely on three pillars: large industrial companies, research laboratories and a huge pool of students, engineers and scientists. Indeed, Toulouse is home to the second largest research and education centre in France, it has a high quality of education, first class engineering schools, powerful industries supported by world leaders, such as Airbus or Thales Alenia for aeronautics and space. This ecosystem fosters innovation in fields such as artificial intelligence, IOT, robotics, avionics, embedded systems, biotechnology, health etc.

Toulouse can particularly be described as the 'capital' of the European aerospace industry: it hosts the Airbus headquarters and assembly-lines of Airbus A320, A330, and A350. The A380 was also produced here (the last completed in 2021), as was the Concorde supersonic aircraft. Toulouse also hosts the headquarters of ATR, one of the two headquarters of Liebherr Aerospace and Groupe Latécoère. As for the space industry, with 12,000 jobs, 400 companies and 25% of the European workforce, Toulouse is the main European hub.

Education
Toulouse has the fourth-largest student population in France after Paris, Lyon and Lille with 103,000 students (2012).

Colleges and universities
The University of Toulouse (Université de Toulouse) was established in 1229 (now split into three separate universities). Like the universities in Oxford and Paris, the University of Toulouse was established at a time when Europeans were starting to translate the writings of Arabs of Andalus and Greek philosophers. These writings challenged European ideology—inspiring scientific discoveries and advances in the arts—as society began seeing itself in a new way. These colleges were supported by the Church, in hopes of reconciling Greek philosophy and Christian theology.
 * Catholic University of Toulouse
 * Université Toulouse I, Toulouse School of Economics, Toulouse School of Management and Institut d'études politiques de Toulouse
 * University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès (Formerly University of Toulouse II – Le Mirail)
 * Université Paul Sabatier (Toulouse III)

Toulouse is also the home of Toulouse Business School (TBS), Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), the Institut supérieur européen de gestion group (ISEG Group), the Institut supérieur européen de formation par l'action (ISEFAC), E-Artsup and several engineering schools:
 * ICAM Toulouse (Institut catholique d'arts et métiers)
 * INSA Toulouse
 * ISAE SUPAERO (Institut supérieur de l'aéronautique et de l'espace)
 * ENAC (École Nationale de l'Aviation Civile)
 * INP ENSEEIHT (École Nationale Supérieure d'Électronique, d'Électrotechnique, d'Informatique, d'Hydraulique et des Télécommunications)
 * ENSFEA (École nationale supérieure de formation de l'enseignement agricole)
 * INP ENSIACET (École nationale supérieure d'ingénieurs en art chimique et technologique)
 * INP ENSAT (École Nationale Supérieure Agronomique de Toulouse)
 * INP ENM (École Nationale de la Météorologie)
 * EPITA (École pour l'informatique et les techniques avancées)
 * EPITECH (École pour l'informatique et les nouvelles technologies or European Institute of Information Technology)
 * IPSA (Institut Polytechnique des Sciences Avancées)
 * EIPurpan (École d'ingénieurs de Purpan)

Primary and secondary schools
The most well known high schools in Toulouse are Lycée Pierre-de-Fermat and Lycée Saint-Sernin.

International schools serving area expatriates are in nearby Colomiers:
 * International School of Toulouse
 * Deutsche Schule Toulouse (German school)

Train
The main railway station, with regional and national services, is Toulouse-Matabiau station. In addition, there are several smaller stations in the city: Toulouse-Saint-Agne, Gallieni-Cancéropôle, Toulouse-Saint-Cyprien-Arènes, Le TOEC, Lardenne, Saint-Martin-du-Touch, Les Ramassiers, Montaudran and Lacourtensourt. The stations of Lalande-L'Eglise and Route-de-Launaguet were served until 2016.

Metro
All urban bus, metro and tram services are operated by Tisséo. In addition to an extensive bus system (145 lines), the Toulouse Metro is a VAL (Véhicule Automatique Léger) metro system made up of driverless (automatic) rubber-tired trains:

 * Line A runs for 12.5 km from Balma-Gramont in the north-east to Basso Cambo in the south-west.

 * Line B, which opened in June 2007, serves 20 stations north to south and intersects line A at Jean Jaurès.

Line C is under construction for an opening in 2028 with 21 stations over 27km. It will cross line B at 2 stations (La Vache and François Verdier) and will cross line A at Matabiau Gares (central train station)

Actual Line C has existed since line A was completed. It is not VAL but an urban railway line operated by SNCF. It connects to line A at Arènes. Two other stations located in Toulouse are also served by line C. Lardenne, formerly named "Gare des Capelles", changed its name in September 2003 when line C opened. Le TOEC station opened on 1 September 2003 with the creation of line C, allowing an urban train service in Toulouse and close western suburbs. Since 2023, the service is now named Arènes-Colomiers train line to leave the name for the new metro line.

Similarly, Line D runs south from Toulouse Matabiau to Muret.

Tramway
The Toulouse conurbation has two tram lines:

 * The tramway line T1, with 25 stations and 14.8km long, has been in service since December 2010. It links Toulouse to the new MEETT Exhibition and Convention Centre in Beauzelle, via Blagnac.

 * The tramway line T2, which connects Toulouse-Blagnac airport, is a branch of the first line. It is currently stopped to transform it into an airport express tram which will be connected to metro line C in 2028.

Cable car
Since May 13, 2022, the city of Toulouse has had a new mode of public transportation called Téléo. This is a cable car that links Paul-Sabatier University to Rangueil Hospital and the Oncopole (a major cancer research center). It allows to fly over the Garonne and the hill of Pech David and, with its 3 kilometers, it is the longest urban cable car in France. It is presented as the first link in a public transport belt that is not radial and oriented towards the city center, but designed to encircle the south of Toulouse.

Bicycle
In 2007, a citywide bicycle rental scheme called VélôToulouse was introduced, with bicycles available from automated stations for a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly subscription.

Airports
Airports include:
 * Toulouse Blagnac: the principal local airport
 * Toulouse Francazal: former principal airport, then former military airfield, its activity is nowadays reduced
 * Toulouse Lasbordes: this airfield is dedicated to leisure aviation and flying clubs

Canal
The Canal du Midi begins in Toulouse and runs up to Sète.

Toulouse public transportation statistics
The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Toulouse on a weekday is 44 minutes. 9.1% of public transit riders ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 9 minutes, while 10.4% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 7 km, while 8% travel for over 12 km in a single direction.

Communications
Toulouse is the home of Bonhoure Radio Tower, a 61 m lattice tower used for FM and TV transmission. In 2001 a 100 km optical fiber (symmetric 360 Gbit/s) network named Infrastructure Métropolitaine de Télécommunications was deployed around the city and suburbs.

Culture

The Théâtre du Capitole is the home of opera and ballet; there has been a theatre on the site since 1736. The Orchestre National du Capitole, long associated with Michel Plasson, plays at the Halle aux Grains. On 31 October 2023, Toulouse was named UNESCO City of Music.

Le Château d'Eau, an old 19th-century water-tower, was converted as a gallery in 1974 by Jean Dieuzaide, a French photographer from Toulouse and is now one of the oldest public places dedicated to photography in the world. Toulouse's art museums include the Musée des Augustins, the Musée des Abattoirs, the Musée Georges Labit, and the Fondation Bemberg in the Hôtel d'Assézat. The Musée Saint-Raymond is devoted to Antiquity and the Muséum de Toulouse to natural history.

Toulouse is the seat of the Académie des Jeux Floraux, the equivalent of the French Academy for the Occitan-speaking regions of southern France, making Toulouse the unofficial capital of Occitan culture. The traditional Cross of Toulouse (from Provence, under the name of cross of Provence), emblem of the County of Toulouse and commonly widespread around all of Occitania during the Middle Ages is the symbol of the city and of the newly founded Midi-Pyrénées région, as well as a popular Occitan symbol.

The city's gastronomic specialties include the Saucisse de Toulouse, a type of sausage, cassoulet Toulousain, a bean and pork stew, and garbure, a cabbage soup with poultry. Also, foie gras, the liver of an overfed duck or goose, is a delicacy commonly made in the Midi-Pyrénées.

Sport
Stade Toulousain of the Top 14 is one of the most successful rugby union clubs in Europe, having been crowned European champions six times and French champions twenty-three times.

Toulouse Olympique represents the city in rugby league. The club has been playing in the British rugby league system since 2016. They have been playing in the top tier in 2022 and played in the 2nd tier Championship in 2023, after their relegation. The club has had historical success in France, having been crowned French champions six times.

The city also has a professional football team, Toulouse FC, which plays in Ligue 1, the highest level of football in France, and is the current holder of the Coupe de France, having won the 2023 final. The club plays at the Stadium Municipal, which was a venue during the 1998 FIFA World Cup and 2007 Rugby World Cup, as well as hosting important club rugby games and several Rugby League World Cups. Toulouse was also a host of EuroBasket 1999.

Notable people
Several notable Toulousains have been scientists, such as Jean Dausset (1916-2009), 1980 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; 17th-century mathematician Pierre de Fermat (1607-1665), who spent his life in Toulouse, where he wrote Fermat's Last Theorem and was a lawyer in the city's Parlement; Paul Sabatier (1854-1941), 1912 winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry; Albert Fert (b. 1938), 2007 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics who grew up in Toulouse where he attended the Lycée Pierre-de-Fermat and Jean Tirole (b. 1953), owner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, chairman and founder of the Toulouse School of Economics along with Jean-Jacques Laffont.

Musically, Toulouse is one of the two controversial, disputed birthplaces of Carlos Gardel (1890-1935) (the other being Tacuarembo, Uruguay), probably the most prominent figure in the history of the tango. The city's most renowned songwriter is Claude Nougaro (1929-2004). The composer and organist Georges Guiraud (1868–1928) and songwriter Jain (b. 1992) were born in Toulouse.

Concerning arts, Toulouse is the birthplace of Impressionist painter Henri Martin (1860-1943) as well as sculptors Alexandre Falguière (1831-1900), Antonin Mercié (1845-1916) and illustrator Edmund Dulac (1882-1953). Moreover, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) and Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929) were trained at the Toulouse fine arts school. Post Impressionist painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's (1864-1901) father was Count Alphonse Charles de Toulouse-Lautrec Monfa (1838-1913) and was part of an aristocratic family of Counts of Toulouse, Odet de Foix, Vimcomte de Lautrec and the Viscounts of Montfa.

Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse (c. 1041 – 1105), one of the leaders of the First Crusade, was born in Toulouse. Aviation pioneer Clément Ader (1841-1925), acrobatic performer Jules Léotard (1838-1870) who gave his name to the leotard, and psychiatrist Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol (1772-1840) were also natives. French football legend Just Fontaine (1933-2023), record holder for the most goals in a single FIFA World Cup (thirteen in six games in 1958), lived in Toulouse for the last 60 years of his life.

Twin towns and sister cities
Toulouse is twinned with:

 * Atlanta, United States, since 1975
 * Bologna, Italy, since 1981
 * Elche, Spain, since 1981
 * Chongqing, China, since 1981
 * Kyiv, Ukraine, since 1975
 * Tel Aviv, Israel, since 1962

Other cooperations
Toulouse also has accords of cooperation with the following towns:

 * Zaragoza, Aragón, Spain
 * N'Djamena, Chad
 * Hanoi, Vietnam
 * Saint-Louis, Senegal
 * Düsseldorf, Germany
 * Kfardebian, Lebanon

title: Toulouse


text:
King Oliver

Joseph Nathan "King" Oliver (December 19, 1881 – April 8/10, 1938) was an American jazz cornet player and bandleader. He was particularly recognized for his playing style and his pioneering use of mutes in jazz. Also a notable composer, he wrote many tunes still played today, including "Dippermouth Blues", "Sweet Like This", "Canal Street Blues", and "Doctor Jazz". He was the mentor and teacher of Louis Armstrong. His influence was such that Armstrong claimed, "if it had not been for Joe Oliver, Jazz would not be what it is today."

Life
Joseph Nathan Oliver was born in Aben, Louisiana, near Donaldsonville in Ascension Parish, to Nathan Oliver and Virginia "Jinnie" Jones. He claimed 1881 as his year of birth in his draft registration in September 1918 (two months before the end of World War I) but that year is open to debate, with some census records and other sources suggesting 1884 or 1885 as his true year of birth.

He moved to New Orleans in his youth. He first studied the trombone, then changed to cornet. From 1908 to 1917, he played cornet in New Orleans brass bands and dance bands and in the city's red-light district, which came to be known as Storyville. A band he co-led with trombonist Kid Ory was considered one of the best and hottest in New Orleans in the late 1910s. He was popular in New Orleans across economic and racial lines and was in demand for music jobs of all kinds.

According to an oral history interview at Tulane University's Hogan Jazz Archive with Oliver's widow, Stella, a fight broke out at a dance where Oliver was playing, and the police arrested him, his band, and the fighters.

He was living in Chicago with his wife, Estelle "Stella" Dominick, whom he had married in New Orleans in September 1911. He continued to work at the Dreamland, forming a band there in January 1920, which included Johnny Dodds, Honoré Dutrey, and Lil Hardin, the nucleus of his famous Creole Jazz Band. After Storyville closed, he moved to Chicago in 1918 with his wife and step-daughter, Ruby Tuesday Oliver (born 1905).

Noticeably different in his approach were faster tempos, unlike the slow drags in the African-American dance halls of New Orleans. In Chicago, he found work with colleagues from New Orleans, such as clarinetist Lawrence Duhé, bassist Bill Johnson, trombonist Roy Palmer, and drummer Paul Barbarin. He became leader of Duhé's band, playing at a number of Chicago clubs. In the summer of 1921, he took a group to the West Coast, playing engagements in San Francisco and Oakland, California. On the west coast, Oliver and his band engaged with the vaudeville tradition, performing in plantation outfits.

Oliver and his band returned to Chicago in 1922, where they started playing in the Lincoln Gardens as King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band. In addition to Oliver on cornet, the personnel included his protégé Louis Armstrong on second cornet, Baby Dodds on drums, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Lil Hardin (later Armstrong's wife) on piano, Honoré Dutrey on trombone, and Bill Johnson on double bass. Recordings made by this group in 1923 for Gennett, Okeh, Paramount, and Columbia demonstrated the New Orleans style of collective improvisation, also known as Dixieland, and brought it to a larger audience. Because they were recording acousticly into a horn that was directly connected to the needle making the record master, Armstrong notably had to stand in the corner of the room, away from the horn, because his powerful playing bounced the needle off the master. In addition, white musicians would visit Lincoln Gardens in order to learn from Oliver and his band. Because Lincoln Gardens was in Chicago's black neighborhood and only admitted blacks, the white players listened outside near the front door. A prospective tour in the midwestern states ultimately broke up the band in 1924.

In the mid-1920s Oliver enlarged his band to nine musicians, performing under the name King Oliver and his Dixie Syncopators, and began using more written arrangements with jazz solos. This band led by Oliver at the Plantation Café was in direct competition with Louis Armstrong's Sunset Stompers, who performed at the Sunset Café. In 1927 the band went to New York, but he disbanded it to do freelance jobs. In the later 1920s, he struggled with playing trumpet due to his gum disease, so he employed others to handle the solos, including his nephew Dave Nelson, Louis Metcalf, and Red Allen. He reunited the band in 1928, recording for Victor Talking Machine Company one year later. He continued with modest success until a downturn in the economy made it more difficult to find bookings. His periodontitis made playing the trumpet progressively difficult. He quit playing music in 1937.

Work and influence
As a player, Oliver took great interest in altering his horn's sound. He pioneered the use of mutes, including the rubber plumber's plunger, derby hat, bottles and cups. His favorite mute was a small metal mute made by the C.G. Conn Instrument Company, with which he played his famous solo on his composition the "Dippermouth Blues" (an early nickname for fellow cornetist Louis Armstrong). His recording "Wa Wa Wa" with the Dixie Syncopators can be credited with giving the name wah-wah to such techniques. This "freak" style of trumpet playing was also featured in his composition, "Eccentric."

Oliver was also a talented composer, and wrote many tunes that are still regularly played, including "Dippermouth Blues," "Sweet Like This," "Canal Street Blues," and "Doctor Jazz." "Dippermouth Blues," for example, was adapted by Don Redman for Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra under the new name of "Sugar Foot Stomp".

Oliver performed mostly on cornet, but like many cornetists he switched to trumpet in the late 1920s. He credited jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden as an early influence, and in turn was a major influence on numerous younger cornet/trumpet players in New Orleans and Chicago, including Tommy Ladnier, Paul Mares, Muggsy Spanier, Johnny Wiggs, Frank Guarente and, the most famous of all, Armstrong. One of his protégés, Louis Panico (cornetist with the Isham Jones Orchestra), authored a book entitled The Novelty Cornetist, which is illustrated with photos showing some of the mute techniques he learned from Oliver.

As mentor to Armstrong in New Orleans, Oliver taught young Louis and gave him his job in Kid Ory's band when he went to Chicago. A few years later Oliver summoned him to Chicago to play with his band. Louis remembered Oliver as "Papa Joe" and considered him his idol and inspiration. In his autobiography, Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans, Armstrong wrote: "It was my ambition to play as he did. I still think that if it had not been for Joe Oliver, Jazz would not be what it is today. He was a creator in his own right."

Hardships in later years, decline and death
Oliver's business acumen could not equal his musical skill. A succession of managers stole money from him, and he tried to negotiate more money for his band than the Savoy Ballroom was willing to pay – losing the job. He lost the chance of an important engagement at New York City's famous Cotton Club when he held out for more money; young Duke Ellington took the job and subsequently catapulted to fame.

The Great Depression brought hardship to Oliver. He lost his life savings to a collapsed bank in Chicago, and he struggled to keep his band together through a series of hand-to-mouth gigs until the group broke up.

Oliver also had health problems, such as pyorrhea, a gum disease that was partly caused by his love of sugar sandwiches and it made it very difficult for him to play and he soon began delegating solos to younger players, but by 1935, he could no longer play the trumpet at all. Oliver was stranded in Savannah, Georgia, where he pawned his trumpet and finest suits and briefly ran a fruit stall, then he worked as a janitor at Wimberly's Recreation Hall (526–528 West Broad Street).

Oliver died in poverty "of arteriosclerosis, too broke to afford treatment" in a Savannah rooming house on April 8 or 10, 1938. His sister spent her rent money to have his body brought to New York, where he was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx. Armstrong and other loyal musician friends were in attendance.

Honors and awards
Oliver was inducted as a charter member of the Gennett Records Walk of Fame in Richmond, Indiana in 2007.

Selected compilation discography

 * Papa Joe: King Oliver and His Dixie Syncopators 1926–1928 (Decca, 1969)
 * Louis Armstrong and King Oliver (Milestone, 1974)
 * The New York Sessions (Bluebird, 1989)
 * Sugar Foot Stomp The Original Decca Recordings (GRP, 1992)
 * Dippermouth Blues (ASV Living Era, 1996)
 * Great Original Performances 1923–1930 (Louisiana Red Hot, 1998)
 * Sugar Foot Stomp Vocalion & Brunswick Recordings Vol. 1 (Frog, 2000)
 * The Best of King Oliver (Blues Forever, 2001)
 * The Complete Set: King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band (Retrieval, 2004)
 * The Complete 1923 Jazz Band Recordings (Off the Record, 2006)
 * King Joe Oliver by Walter C. Allen and Brian A. L. Rust, Jazz Monographs No. 1, February 1956, published by Walter C. Allen Beleville, N.J. (This is the second printing; Jazz Monographs No. 1. October 1955 was the first printing of this biography and discography.)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: King Oliver


text:
Baccarat

Baccarat or baccara is a card game played at casinos. It is a comparing card game played between two hands, the "player" and the "banker". Each baccarat coup (round of play) has three possible outcomes: "player" (player has the higher score), "banker", and "tie".

There are three popular variants of the game: punto banco, baccarat chemin de fer, and baccarat banque (or à deux tableaux). In punto banco, each player's moves are forced by the cards the player is dealt. In baccarat chemin de fer and baccarat banque, by contrast, both players can make choices. The winning odds are in favour of the bank, with a house edge of at least 1 percent.

History
The origins of the game are disputed. Some sources claim that it dates to the 19th century, others that the game was introduced into France from Italy at the end of the 15th century by soldiers returning from the Italian Wars during the reign of King of France Charles VIII.

Baccarat has been popular among the French nobility since the 19th century. During the Napoleonic era and before the legalization of casino gambling in 1907, people in France commonly played baccarat in private gaming rooms. Dating to this time period, Baccarat Banque is the earliest form of baccarat; it is a three-person game and mentioned in Album des jeux by Charles Van-Tenac. Later, Chemin de Fer emerged as a two-person, zero-sum game from Baccarat Banque. Baccarat Punto Banco, in which the bettor bets on whether the Player or the Banker hand wins, was a significant change in the development of modern baccarat. It developed into a house-banked game in Havana in the 1940s, and is the most popular modern form.

American casinos are generating an increasing amount of their revenue from baccarat play. For example, in May 2012, Nevada only generated 18.3% of its total table gaming win from baccarat. However, in May 2013, this percentage increased to 33.1% and in May 2014 it rose to 45.2%.

Baccarat is the most important table game in Macau, with taxes from baccarat play constituting the largest single source of public funding in Macau.

Valuation of hands
In baccarat, the 2 through 9 cards (of any suit) are worth face value (in points); the 10, jack, queen, and king have no point value and are thus worth zero; aces are worth one point; jokers are not used. Hands are valued modulo 10; i.e., according to the units digit of the sum of their constituent cards. For example, a hand consisting of 2 and 3 is worth five, while a hand consisting of 6 and 7 is worth three, that being the value of the units digit in the combined point total of thirteen. The highest possible hand value in baccarat is therefore nine.

Punto banco
Punto banco is the most played version of baccarat. In punto banco, the casino banks the game at all times, and commits to playing out both hands according to fixed drawing rules, known as the "tableau" (French: "board"), in contrast to more historic baccarat games where each hand is associated with an individual who makes drawing choices. The player (punto) and banker (banco) are simply designations for the two hands dealt out in each coup, two outcomes which the bettor can back; the player hand has no particular association with the gambler, nor the banker hand with the house.

Punto banco is dealt from a shoe containing 6 or 8 decks of cards shuffled together; a cut-card is placed in front of the seventh from last card, and the drawing of the cut-card indicates the last coup of the shoe. The dealer burns the first card face up and then based on its respective numerical value, with aces worth 1 and face cards worth 10, the dealer burns that many cards face down. For each coup, two cards are dealt face up to each hand, starting from "player" and alternating between the hands. The croupier may call the total (e.g., "five player, three banker"). If either the player or banker or both achieve a total of 8 or 9 at this stage, the coup is finished and the result is announced: a player win, a banker win, or tie. If neither hand has eight or nine, the drawing rules are applied to determine whether the player should receive a third card. Then, based on the value of any card drawn to the player, the drawing rules are applied to determine whether the banker should receive a third card. The coup is then finished, the outcome is announced, and winning bets are paid out.

Punto banco is a pure game of chance and therefore it is not possible for a gambler's bets to be rationally motivated.

Tableau of drawing rules
If neither the player nor the banker is dealt a total of 8 or 9 in the first two cards (known as a "natural"), the tableau is consulted, first for the player's rules, then the banker's.

 * Player's rule
 * If the player has an initial total of 5 or less, they draw a third card. If the player has an initial total of 6 or 7, they stand.

 * Banker's rule
 * If the player stood pat (i.e. has only two cards), the banker regards only their own hand and acts according to the same rule as the player, i.e. the banker draws a third card with hands 5 or less and stands with 6 or 7.
 * If the player drew a third card, the banker acts according to the following more complex rules:

 * If the banker total is 2 or less, they draw a third card regardless of what the player's third card is.
 * If the banker total is 3, they draw a third card unless the player's third card is an 8.
 * If the banker total is 4, they draw a third card if the player's third card is 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7.
 * If the banker total is 5, they draw a third card if the player's third card is 4, 5, 6, or 7.
 * If the banker total is 6, they draw a third card if the player's third card is a 6 or 7.
 * If the banker total is 7, they stand.

The croupier will deal the cards according to the tableau and the croupier will announce the winning hand, either the player or the banker. Losing bets will be collected and the winning bets will be paid according to the rules of the house. Usually, 1-to-1 even money will be paid on player bets and 19-to-20 on banker bets (even money with "5% commission to the house on the win").

Should both the player and banker have the same value at the end of the deal the croupier shall announce "égalité — tie bets win." All tie bets will be paid at 8-to-1 odds and all bets on player or banker remain in place and active for the next game (the customer may or may not be able to retract these bets depending on casino rules).

Casino provision
In the US, the full-scale version of punto banco is usually played at large tables in roped off areas or private rooms separated from the main gaming floor. The game is frequented by high rollers, who may wager tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single hand. Minimum bets are relatively high, often starting at $100 and going as high as $500. Posted maximum bets are often arranged to suit a player. The table is staffed by a croupier, who directs the play of the game, and two dealers who calculate tax and collect and pay bets. Six or eight decks of cards are used, normally shuffled only by the croupier and dealers. The shoe is held by one of the players, who deals the cards on the instructions of the croupier according to the tableau. On a player win, the shoe moves either to the highest winning bettor, or to the next person in clockwise order around the table, depending on the casino's conventions. The shoe may be refused or the croupier may be requested to deal.

About 91% of total income from Macau casinos in 2014 came from punto banco.

Odds and strategy
Punto banco has both some of the lowest house edges among casino table games, and some of the highest. The player bet has, relative to most casino bets, a low house edge of 1.24%, and the banker bet (accounting for the 5% commission on the win) is even lower, at 1.06%. In contrast, the tie bet, which pays 8-to-1, has a high house edge of 14.4%. Most casinos in the United Kingdom pay the tie at 9-to-1, resulting in a house edge of approximately 4.85%.

Card counting can be employed to reduce the house edge by about 0.05%. If paired with a technique known as edge sorting, baccarat players can obtain a significant edge versus the casino. This technique gained attention in 2012 when a casino in the United Kingdom refused to pay professional gambler Phil Ivey about $11 million because he had used edge sorting to gain an advantage. The same year, Ivey and a female companion won $9.6 million at the Borgata casino in Atlantic City using edge sorting and another $500,000 playing craps using his gains as a stake in the game. The Borgata paid him after his win but then sued Ivey in 2014 after surveillance video showed he had manipulated the dealer into rotating certain cards in the deck to exploit the flaw on the back of the cards. The Borgata prevailed and won $10.1 million, which Ivey refused to pay. In February 2019, the Borgata received approval from the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey to go after Ivey's assets in the state of Nevada, since he had no assets in the state of New Jersey to pursue. Ivey and the Borgata reached a settlement in July 2020.

House edge details (8 decks)

Variations
Mini-baccarat is a version of banco punto played on a small table with smaller minimums/maximums. It is popular with more casual players, particularly those from Asia.

A mini-baccarat variation where even money is paid on winning banker bets (rather than 95%), except when the banker wins with 6, which pay only 50% of the bet, goes under various names including Super 6 and Punto 2000. The house edge on a banker bet under Super 6 is 1.46% compared with regular commission baccarat at 1.058%. This is equivalent to increasing the commission by 17.45% to 5.87%. The banker wins with a 6 about five times every eight-deck shoe. As well as its increased house edge, the Super 6 variation is used by casinos for its speed, since it partially does away with the time-consuming process of calculating and collecting commission on winning banker bets except for winning with a 6.

In a similar variation called EZ-baccarat, even money is paid on both winning banker or player bets, except when the banker wins with a total of 7 after the third card is drawn, which results in a push on banker bets. The game has two additional options, the Dragon 7, a specific bet of a winning three-card 7 on the banker side, which pays 40-to-1 instead of pushing, and Panda 8, a bet of a winning three-card 8 on the player side, which pays 25-to-1.

Chemin de fer
Chemin de fer is a version which first appeared in the late 19th century. Its name, which is the French term for railway, comes from the version being quicker than the original game, the railway being at that time the fastest means of transport. It is still the most popular version in France.

Six decks of cards are used, shuffled together. Players are seated in random order, typically around an oval table; discarded cards go to the center. Play begins to the right of the croupier and continues counterclockwise.

Once play begins, one player is designated as the banker; this player also deals. The other players are "punters". The position of banker passes counterclockwise in the course of the game. In each round, the banker wagers the amount they are willing to risk. Each other player, in order, then declares whether they will "go bank", playing against the entire current bank with a matching wager. A maximum of one player may "go bank". If no one "goes bank", players make their wagers in order. If the total wagers from the players are less than the bank, observing bystanders may also wager up to the amount of the bank. If the total wagers from the players are greater than the bank, the banker may choose to increase the bank to match; otherwise, the excess wagers are removed in reverse play order.

The banker deals four cards face-down: two to themselves and two held in common by the remaining players. The player with the highest individual wager (or first in play order if tied for highest wager) is selected to represent the group of non-banker players. The banker and player both look at their cards; if either has an eight or a nine, this is immediately announced and the hands are turned face-up and compared. If neither hand is an eight or nine, the player has a choice to accept or refuse a third card; if accepted, it is dealt face-up. Traditional practice – grounded in mathematics, similar to basic strategy in blackjack, but further enforced via social sanctions by the other individuals whose money is at stake when no one "goes bank" – dictates that one always accept a card if one's hand totals between 0 and 4, inclusive, and always refuse a card if it totals 6 or 7. After the player finishes, the banker, in turn, decides either to accept or to refuse another card. Once both the banker and the representative player have made their decision, the hands are turned face-up and compared.

If the player's hand exceeds the banker's hand when they are compared, each wagering player receives back their wager and a matching amount from the bank, and the position of banker passes to the next player in order. If the banker's hand exceeds the player's hand, all wagers are forfeit and placed into the bank, and the banker position does not change. If there is a tie, wagers remain as they are for the next hand.

If the banker wishes to withdraw, the new banker is the first player in order willing to stake an amount equal to the current bank total. If no one is willing to stake this amount, the new banker is instead the next player in order, and the bank resets to whatever they wish to stake. Many games have a set minimum bank or wager amount.

Unlike punto banco, which is purely a game of chance, chemin de fer includes an element of player skill.

Baccarat banque
In Baccarat banque the position of banker is more permanent compared to Chemin de fer. The shoe contains three inter-shuffled decks. The banker, unless they retire because they wish to or ran out of money to stake, keeps their role until all these cards have been dealt.

The banker is initially determined via auctioning, i.e. is given to the player who will undertake to risk the largest amount. In some circles, the person who has first set down their name on the list of players has the right to hold the first bank, risking such amount as they may think proper.

When a banker is determined, they sit opposite the croupier with the discard area between. On both sides of the banker are the punters (traditionally, ten such constituting a full table). Other players cannot sit directly and may only bet when active players' bets don't cover the banker's stakes.

The croupier shuffles the cards then prompts one punter from their right, one from their left then the banker to reshuffle and finally selects a random player to cut. After every player has bet, the banker deals one card to one of the right punters, the second to one of the left punters, and the third to themselves. This is done twice, resulting in 6 cards on the table. Each side wins or loses depending on the cards dealt to that side only. The rules as to turning up with eight or nine, offering and accepting cards, and so on, are the same as Chemin de fer.

Each punter continues to hold the cards for their side so long as they win or tie. If they lose, the next hand is dealt to the player next following them in rotation.

In each side, any player may "go bank", like in Chemin de fer. If two players on opposite sides desire to "go bank", each player bets half the bank.

A player going bank may either do so for as many times as they like until they lose, or as a cheval, i.e. on two hands separately, one-half of the stake being played upon each hand. A player going bank and losing may go bank again, until they lose for the third time.

A banker must play out one hand, but may retire at any time afterwards. On retiring, they must state the amount they retire with. It is then open to any other player (in order of rotation) to continue the bank, starting with the same stake and dealing from undealt cards. The outgoing banker takes the place previously occupied by their successor.

Should the bank empty, the banker may freely put more money at stake without losing their right to bank.

If all punters' bets exceed the bank stake, the banker does not need to put more money. In the event of their losing, the croupier pays the punters in order of rotation until the bank runs out of money. The remainders are returned. The banker may, however, choose to accept the bets and increase their own stakes anyway. If they do so, the bank becomes unlimited and the banker must either cover all bets posted by all players or give up the bank.

Macao
David Parlett considers Macao as the immediate precursor to baccarat. Its name and rules suggest it may have been brought over by sailors returning from Asia where similar card games have been played since the early 17th century such as San zhang, Oicho-Kabu, and Gabo japgi. Macao appeared in Europe at the end of the 18th century and was popular for all classes. Its notoriety led to King Victor-Amadeus III banning it in all his realms in 1788. It was the most popular game in Watier's, an exclusive gentlemen's club in London, where it led to the ruin of Beau Brummell. The match in Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella Night Games (Spiel im Morgengrauen) contains instructions for Macao under the name of baccarat. Its popularity in the United States waned after the early 20th century. The game still has a following in Continental Europe, especially in Russia.

Macao uses two decks of cards shuffled together. Punters place their bets (within the agreed limits) against the banker. Initially, one card is dealt clockwise and face down to every player by the banker. The punters' objective is to beat the banker's card value or risk losing their bet. In case of a tie, whoever has the same value with fewer cards wins. The banker wins if there is a tie in both value and number of cards (in an early version, all bets are off). Any punter who receives a natural 9 receives triple the amount of the bet as long as the banker does not have a natural 9 too. Winning with a natural 8 awards double while winning with a 7 or under is only equal to the bet. Players can request additional cards which are dealt face up; if it is a ten or a face card, they can reject it and ask for another. In an early version of this game, going over 9 with extra cards amounts to a "bust" as in blackjack, later versions use modulo 10 arithmetic as in the other games. Beating the banker with a pair only awards an equal amount to the bet. When the deck is exhausted, the player to the banker's left becomes the new banker.

Victoria is a variation of Macao where players are initially dealt two cards. Like Macao and baccarat, it was banned in Russia during the 19th century though the rules continued to be printed in game books.

Royal baccarat scandal
The Tranby Croft affair in 1891 and disgraced socialite William Gordon Cumming's subsequent lawsuit were known together as the royal baccarat scandal, due to the involvement of the future King Edward VII. Since the Prince of Wales was involved in the incident, it inspired a huge amount of media interest in the game, bringing baccarat to the attention of the public at large. Accounts of the scandal in newspapers also included the rules for the game. The scandal became the subject of music hall songs and a stage play.

A Hard Day's Night
In the 1964 Richard Lester comedy A Hard Day's Night, Paul McCartney's "grandfather" John (played by Wilfrid Brambell) steals an invite to a posh casino intended for the band, and has a run of luck at a baccarat table despite appearing not to know how to play the game; at one point, upon winning a bet, he yells "Bingo," to which the croupier corrects him, thinking he meant to proclaim "Banco."

James Bond
Baccarat chemin-de-fer is the favoured game of James Bond, the fictional secret agent created by Ian Fleming. Bond plays the game in numerous novels, most notably his 1953 debut, Casino Royale, in which much of the plot revolves around a game between Bond and SMERSH trade union operative Le Chiffre; the unabridged version of the novel includes a primer to the game for readers who are unfamiliar with it. It is also featured in several filmed versions of the character, including the 1954 television adaptation of Casino Royale, where Bond bankrupts Le Chiffre in order to have him eliminated by his Soviet superiors; Dr. No, where Bond is first introduced while playing the game in film; Thunderball; the 1967 version of Casino Royale, which is the most detailed treatment of a baccarat game in any Bond film; On Her Majesty's Secret Service; For Your Eyes Only; and GoldenEye.

In the 2006 movie adaptation of Casino Royale, baccarat is replaced by Texas hold 'em poker, largely due to the poker boom at the time of filming.

Rush Hour 3
In 2007's Rush Hour 3, main characters James Carter and Geneviève first meet playing baccarat in a casino in Paris. Initially, Carter can not afford to play, but Geneviève covers for him. Unsure of the rules of the game, Carter first asks for an extra card as if it was blackjack, and then thinks that he has a good hand (3 kings), not knowing that he instead has zero points. The dealer explains the situation, and Geneviève wins.

Bob le flambeur
The 1956 French heist film Bob le flambeur directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, features a climactic sequence in which the protagonist begins gambling as a heist is taking place. He encounters extraordinary luck playing chemin de fer, which leads him to lose track of time.

title: Baccarat