Lyon

Lyon's story begins on the hill of Fourvière. In 43 BC the Roman Senate ordered a settlement there for Roman refugees expelled from Vienne, soon known as Lugdunum. It became a hub of Roman roads and the capital of Gallia Lugdunensis; the emperors Claudius and Caracalla were born here, and Christians including Blandina and Pothinus were martyred in the 2nd century. In 461 it became the capital of the Burgundians, and it passed to the Holy Roman Empire before coming under French control in the 14th century.

From the late 15th century trade fairs brought in by Italian merchants made Lyon the economic counting house of France and its banking centre. Silk, which tied it to Italy, drove its growth. In 1793 the city rose against the National Convention, was besieged for two months and punished with more than 2,000 executions and the demolition of buildings around Place Bellecour; a plaque declared that "Lyon no longer exists". The canuts, the silk workers, rose in 1831 and 1834, and in 1895 the Lumière brothers pioneered cinema here.

In the Second World War Lyon was both a base of the Gestapo under Klaus Barbie and a stronghold of the Resistance, whose members used the traboules to escape raids. It was liberated on 3 September 1944. Its historic quarters were listed by UNESCO in 1998, and since 2015 the city and 58 suburbs have formed the Metropolis of Lyon.

The Lyonnais take their city's food seriously. The critic Curnonsky called Lyon the gastronomic capital of the world, and its reputation rests on chefs such as Marie Bourgeois and Eugénie Brazier, and later Paul Bocuse, who made Lyonnaise cooking famous worldwide. Old habits survive in the language too: Franco-Provençal was once spoken here, and its words linger in local French — children are "gones" and little girls "fenottes".

The city is proud of inventing cinema, celebrated at the Institut Lumière, and of Guignol, the puppet created here two centuries ago and still performed in small theatres. It calls itself the French capital of trompe-l'œil walls, painted across the city, and has a strong contemporary art scene led by the Biennale. Its biggest moment is the Fête des Lumières around 8 December, when residents put candles in their windows in thanks to the Virgin Mary, who is said to have saved the city from plague, and monuments become screens for light shows.

Football matters: Olympique Lyonnais won seven straight league titles from 2002 to 2008, and its women's team dominated French football with fourteen titles in a row and eight Champions League wins. The rugby club LOU plays at the old Stade de Gerland, and ASVEL basketball in neighbouring Villeurbanne. Memory of the Resistance is strong; many of its members were shot in Place Bellecour.

About 519,000 people lived in the city of Lyon in 2023, on a small territory of 48 square kilometres; the metropolitan area had about 2.3 million, the second largest in France. Most residents live on the flat ground east of the Rhône, while the hills and the Presqu'île hold the old centre. With nearly 200,000 students in the metropolis, Lyon is the second student city in the country.

The economy is one of the richest in France. La Part-Dieu is the second business district after La Défense, with more than 55,000 jobs, and the city has strengths in pharmaceuticals, vaccines, biotechnology, medical research and video games. Interpol has its world headquarters here, and the former industrial land of Confluence has become a new business and shopping district.

The rhythm of the day still turns on lunch, and on weekends people crowd the markets, the quays of the Saône and Rhône and the Parc de la Tête d'Or. Cycling has grown quickly with the Vélo'v bikes and the new express cycle network, and in 2026 the city received France's top rating for cycling. The ecologist mayor Grégory Doucet, first elected in 2020, won a second term in 2026.

The bouchon is Lyon's own institution: a small, informal restaurant serving local fare such as sausages, duck pâté or roast pork with local wines, often poured by the pot, a 46 cl bottle. The repertoire includes quenelle, gras double, the rosette lyonnaise and andouillette sausages, coq au vin, and salade lyonnaise, lettuce with bacon, croutons and a poached egg. Cervelle de canut, "silk worker's brains", is fromage blanc seasoned with herbs, shallots, oil and vinegar.

The mâchon, a late-morning meal of charcuterie and Beaujolais red wine, began as the meal of the canuts after their night shifts. Sweet specialities include marrons glacés, the coussin de Lyon, pale green marzipan filled with chocolate ganache, and the pink praline rose. More recently, the French tacos, a flour tortilla grilled and folded around chips, cheese and meat, appears to have been invented in the early 2000s in the suburb of Vaulx-en-Velin.

Les Halles Paul Bocuse are where many Lyonnais buy cheese, charcuterie and seafood, and outdoor markets run along the quays. The Beaujolais vineyards lie to the north and the Côtes du Rhône to the south, so local wine is never far from the table.