Lille | |
---|---|
State | |
Country | |
Capital | |
Population | 0 |
Lille ( LEEL; French: [lil] (listen); Dutch: Rijsel [ˈrɛisəl]; Picard: Lile; West Flemish: Rysel) is a city at the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the Nord department, and the main city of the Métropole Européenne de Lille.
As of 2017, Lille had a population of 232,787 within its administrative limits, and Lille is the first city of the Métropole Européenne de Lille with a population of 1,146,320, making it the fourth-largest urban area in France after Paris, Lyon, and Marseille. More broadly, it belongs to a vast conurbation formed with the Belgian cities of Mouscron, Kortrijk, Tournai and Menin, which gave birth in January 2008 to the Eurometropole Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai, the first European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC), which has more than 2.1 million inhabitants.
Nicknamed in France the "Capital of Flanders", Lille and its surroundings belong to the historical region of Romance Flanders, a former territory of the county of Flanders that is not part of the linguistic area of West Flanders. A garrison town (as evidenced by its Citadel), Lille has had an eventful history from the Middle Ages to the French Revolution. Very often besieged during its history, it belonged successively to the Kingdom of France, the Burgundian State, the Holy Roman Empire of Germany and the Spanish Netherlands before being definitively attached to the France of Louis XIV following the War of Spanish Succession along with the entire territory making up the historic province of French Flanders. Lille was still under siege in 1792 during the Franco-Austrian War, in 1914 and 1940.
Helsingborg | |
---|---|
State | |
Country | |
Capital | |
Population | 0 |
Helsingborg (, US also , Swedish: [hɛlsɪŋˈbɔrj] (listen), Danish: [helse̝ŋˈpɒˀ]; spelled Hälsingborg between 1912 and 1970) is a town and the seat of Helsingborg Municipality, Scania, Sweden. It had 112,496 inhabitants in 2019. Helsingborg is the centre of the northern part of western Scania and Sweden's closest point to Denmark: the Danish city Helsingør is clearly visible about 4 km (2 mi) to the west on the other side of the Øresund. The HH Ferry route across the sound has more than 70 car ferry departures from each harbour every day.Following the Swedish orthography reform of 1906 the spelling of many place names in Sweden was modernized. In 1912 it was decided to use the form Hälsingborg.