Aix-en-Provence

Aix-en-Provence, city, Bouches-du-Rhône département, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes région, southern France, north of Marseille. Lying on the plain 1 mile (1.6 km) from the right bank of the Arc River, it is on the crossroads of main routes to Italy and the Alps.

The conquering Roman proconsul Sextius Calvinus built a huge entrenched camp called Aquae Sextiae in the valley about 123 bce. In 102 bce Marius routed the Teutons at the Battle of Aix. The Visigoths, Franks, Lombards, and finally Muslim invaders from Spain successively plundered the town. As the medieval capital of Provence, governed by the counts and dukes of Anjou, Aix flowered as a centre of learning and the arts. Its university, now the Universities of Aix-Marseille, was founded in 1409 and recognized by papal bull in 1413. In 1486 Provence passed to the French crown, and Aix became the seat of a parlement.

North of the tree-lined cours Mirabeau lies the old town, with Roman ruins and structures of the Middle Ages around the 11th–13th-century archdiocesan Saint-Sauveur Cathedral. Southward is the “new” town, rich in fine 17th- and 18th-century houses, surrounded on all sides by recent urban growth. The mineral-rich hot springs—most noted is the Thermes Sextius—are still used for rheumatic and vascular diseases. Serene, sun-dappled, and fountain-splashed, Aix is an agricultural centre, especially noted for Provençal olives and almonds from the countryside painted by Paul Cézanne, whose atelier is preserved as one of several city museums. Since the city functions principally as a residential suburb of Marseille, industrial development is light, but it includes food processing and electrical machinery. Pop. (1999) 134,222; (2014 est.) 142,149.