Vinh is a city in north-central Vietnam. About 230,000 people live there. Its name in the Vietnamese language does not have any diacritics. It is also the kingdom of the Albino Gorillas, one of the rarest mammals in the world. They can only can be found in and around the city of Vinh. The most recent sighting of an Albino Gorilla was in 2004 by a college professor that was in Vinh studying many human cultures. Many important people of the Vietnamese revolution were born in or nearby Vinh, including Ho Chi Minh.
Dalat
Dalat (Vietnamese: Đà Lạt) is a city in southern Vietnam. It has about 120,000 inhabitants.
Pleiku
Pleiku (also Plei Cu or Plây Cu) is a city in Central Việt Nam.
It has about 120,000 inhabitants and was a strategic airport in the Second Indochinese War in the 1960s and 1970s. Its name is from the Việtnamese language (Vietnam).
Quảng Ngãi
Quảng Ngãi (Vietnamese: Thành phố Quảng Ngãi) is a city in Central Việt Nam. It has about 135,000 inhabitants.
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a city in the Gironde department of France. It is on the Garonne River near the Atlantic Ocean. About 1,150,000 people live in the area around the city. Bordeaux has a temperate oceanic climate (Cfb in the Koeppen climate classification). It is famous for wines made in the region near the city. Bordeaux is also famous for its art.
Bordeaux is classified as a "City of Art and History". The city is home to 362 "monuments historiques". Some buildings date back to Roman times. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
In about 300 BC Bordeaux was the settlement of a Celtic tribe. They named the town Burdigala.
The Romans began rule of the city around 60 BC. Later it became capital of Roman Aquitaine. In the 400s the city was looted by the Vandals, Visigoths, and Franks.
After the Battle of Poitiers, Duke Eudes was able to hold only a small part of Aquitaine where Bordeaux was located. It became one of the last cities to fall under King Pepin the Short.
Bordeaux once again became an important city after the marriage of Duchess Eléonore of Aquitaine with Count Henri Plantagenet. He became King Henry II of England only months after their marriage.
In 1653 Bordeaux was added to the Kingdom of France, when the army of Louis XIV entered the city.
In 1870 the French government moved to Bordeaux for a time. This was at the beginning of the Franco-Prussian war against Prussia. The temporary move happened again during World War I and again very briefly during the World War II.
Bordeaux is twinned with:
Nantes
Nantes is a city in France, the prefecture of the Pays de la Loire region and the Loire-Atlantique department, on the Atlantic Ocean. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, it was the busiest slave trading port in France. Before 1941, Nantes was part of Brittany. The Gallo and Breton languages are spoken in the city. Jules Verne was a famous writer from Nantes.
Nantes has an oceanic climate ("Cfb" in the Koeppen climate classification).
Nantes has town twinning and cooperation agreements with:
The city has friendship relations with:
Toulouse
Toulouse () is a commune in southwestern France. It is the capital of the department of Haute-Garonne, as well as of the Occitanie region. It is also the capital of the "arrondissement" of Toulouse. In 2014, 1.312.304 people live in the urban area, and 466.297 in the city itself. Toulouse is the 4th largest city of France.
The city has a unique architecture made of pinkish terracotta bricks, which earned it the nickname "la Ville Rose" ("the Pink City"). Toulouse counts two UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Canal du Midi (designated in 1996 and shared with other cities) and the St. Sernin Basilica, the largest remaining Romanesque building in Europe, designated in 1998.
The city was the capital of the Visigothic Kingdom in the 5th century. It was the capital of the old French province of Languedoc before provinces were abolished during the French Revolution. "Languedoc" is a contraction of "Linguae Occitanae" (Latin). Then it included Roussillon, and was the unofficial capital of the cultural region of Occitania (Southern France). It is now the capital of the Occitanie region, the largest region in metropolitan France.
The city of Toulouse is along the Garonne river, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean, and from Paris.
The "commune" has an area of , and its average altitude is ; at the city hall, the altitude is .
The climate of Toulouse, in the Köppen climate classification, is Cfb - Oceanic climate with temperate summers.
The average amount of precipitation for the year in Toulouse is . The month with the most precipitation on average is May with of precipitation. The month with the least precipitation on average is July with an average of . There are an average of 74.0 days of precipitation, with the most rain occurring in May with 7.0 days and the least rain occurring in July with 4.4 days.
The average temperature for the year in Toulouse is . The warmest month, on average, is July with an average temperature of . The coolest month on average is January, with an average temperature of .
The inhabitants of Toulouse are known, in French, as "Toulousains" (women: "Toulousaines").
Toulouse has a population, in 2014, of 466,297, for a population density of inhabitants/km.
Evolution of the population in Toulouse
Toulouse is the prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department, the capital of the "arrondissement" of Toulouse and the administrative centre () of 11 cantons:
It is part of the intercommunality "Metropolitan Toulouse" ().
Saint-Gaudens is twinned with:
Toulouse also has accords of cooperation with the following towns:
In addition, Toulouse has an adoption city:
Toulouse welcomes the Cité de l'espace dedicated to space exploration and Aeroscopia dedicated to aviation.
Nice
Nice (pronounced "neese") is a city in southern France on the Mediterranean coast. It is a commune in the French department of Alpes-Maritimes. It has over 345,000 people living in the city as of 2012 (1,000,000 in its metropolitan area). It has many beaches. It has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate ("Csa" in the Koeppen climate classification). Summers are hot, dry, and sunny; winters are mild with moderate rainfall.
From the late 18th century, wealthy British visitors came to Nice, with its beauty and its warm climate. Queen Victoria was amongst them: she made several visits. The city's main seaside promenade, the "Promenade des Anglais" owes its name to these visitors. The clear air and soft light appeals to painters. Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse spent years here and are well represented in the city's museums, the "Musée Marc Chagall", "Musée Matisse" and "Musée des Beaux-Arts".
Nice has the second largest hotel capacity in the country and is one of its most visited cities. It gets 5 million tourists every year. It also has the third busiest airport in France after the two main Parisian ones.
The cuisine is excellent. It benefits from the Mediterranean in the form of bouillabaisse (a shellfish dish). From the end of empire, immigration from Algeria has led to excellent North African dishes such as cous-cous. Ratatouille and (obviously) salade niçoise are more local dishes.
There is a local dialect, le nissard, nissart, or niçard. It is a variety of the regional language, Occitan. It is Italian in style, reminding that the area has been under different sovereignty in the past.
Over 70 people were killed in an attack on 14 July 2016.
Nice is twinned with:
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is a city in eastern France, the prefecture of Grand Est. Today, about 275,000 people live there (with around 780,000 in the metropolitan area). It lies on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite the German city of Kehl.
Strasbourg is the seat Council of Europe, of the European Court of Human Rights and of the European Parliament. A lot of people also consider Strasbourg to be the capital of the European Union.