One of the most visited tourist resorts of the Côte d'Azur is located 960 kilometers from Paris and 30 kilometers from the border with Italy, in the Gulf of Angels. From the south, Nice is washed by the Mediterranean Sea. And from the north, the hills on which Nice is spread are protected from the winds by a ring of Alpine mountains.
The city is the administrative center of the Department of the Maritime Alps. The population of Nice is about 345 thousand people.
Archaeological excavations indicate that people lived on the Côte d'Azur as far back as 400 thousand years BC. Nice was founded by the ancient Greeks in the V century BC. After the Greeks came the Romans, the Genoese. The city was taken under the protectorate of Provence, Savoy and Sardinia. In 1860, Nice officially became part of the French Empire.
In the XVIII-XLX centuries, the tourist business began to develop here, which today involves about 80% of the population. The mild climate, beautiful landscapes, free territories attracted many aristocrats to Nice. Members of the royal families of the British and Russian empires visited here. Later the resort was favored by wealthy businessmen. By the end of the XIX century Nice became one of the main centers of European tourism, which led to an unprecedented flowering of architecture. Today it is a popular international middle-class resort.
