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There are six different departments within the Provence-Alpes Cote d'Azur region in France and these are
the Alpes-Maritimes, Hautes-Alpes, Bouches-du-Rhone, Var, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and
Vaucluse.
It is made up of the former French province of Provence, the former papal territory of
Avignon, known as Comtat Venaissin, the former Sardinian-Piedmontese county of Nice, whose
coastline is known in English as the French Riviera, and in French as the Cote d'Azur and
the south eastern part of the former French province of Dauphine, in the French Alps.
To the North is the Rhone-Alpes, to the East is the Italian
border, to the South is the Mediterranean Sea, and to the West is the Languedoc-Roussillon region, with the River Rhone
marking its westernmost border.
There are many popular cities within this region and just some of these within
Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur include, Antibes, Avignon, Cannes, Grasse, Marseille, Nice,
Saint-Tropez and Toulon.
Because of the mild climate, it is a year-round tourist attraction and Nice is second only
to Paris in the number and size of its hotels.
Apart from the tourist industry, others include the perfume industry in Grasse and the
high-tech industry around Sophia-Antipolis.
Alpes-de-Haute-Provence is a mountainous region with peaks over 2,438 metres. The climate
is very dry and arid, but irrigation allows for a prosperous fruit-growing industry.
Marseille has been an important harbour since before Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul and
is situated in the department of the Bouches-du-Rhone.
Marseille is also the capital of the Provence-Alpes-Cote-d'Azur, as well as the capital of
the Bouches-du-Rhone department, which was named after the mouth of the River Rhone, and
its inhabitants are called Marseillais.
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