Lyon is the administrative center of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, the Métropole de Lyon and of the Rhône department. It is also the seat of the international police organization Interpol. The historic city center has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1998. In terms of population, Lyon is the third largest city in France after Paris and Marseille if only the population is counted that is intra-muros, or lives in the city itself. If the entire metropolitan region is included in the calculation, it is the second largest conurbation in France.[2] As the capital of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Lyon attracts a lot of national and European attention and has a relatively strong population growte

Lyon is the administrative center of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, the Métropole de Lyon and of the Rhône department. It is also the seat of the international police organization Interpol. The historic city center has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1998. Lyon was founded in 43 BC. founded by the Romans, under the leadership of Lucius Munatius Plancus, under the name of Lugdunum as the capital of Gaul. However, even before the Romans there had been a Celtic settlement. Lyon played the role of regional center for several centuries, until the Roman Empire declined and fell. In 177 AD, the later patron saint Blandina was burned as a martyr in Lyon. In 461 the Burgundians conquered the city from the Romans and it became the capital of the Kingdom of the Burgundians. The Arabs, who invaded France from Spain in the eighth century, caused great destruction in Lyon in 725. At the Treaty of Verdun, Lyon was assigned to Lothair I. Later it became part of the kingdom of Arles. Lyon's importance increased again in the eleventh century, when the city was designated by the Catholic Church as the headquarters of the Primate of Gaul. With the Treaty of Vienne (1312), Lyon passed from the Holy Roman Empire to the Kingdom of France.

Administratively, the city is divided into nine arrondissements. The city is dominated by two hills, Fourvière and La Croix-Rousse, separated by a strait of the Saône. In the 19th century, they were referred to as "the praying hill" and the "working hill" by Jules Michelet respectively. On the Fourvière is the basilica of Fourvière. The hill of Croix-Rousse, on the other hand, has many workmen's houses where silk was worked. Lyon's silk industry has a rich past. In Vieux-Lyon and Croix-Rousse you will find numerous 'traboules', narrow corridors that connect two parallel streets. These corridors run through the courtyards of residential blocks. Between the Rhône and Saône rivers, on the so-called 'presqu'île' (peninsula), is the Place Bellecour, the third largest square in France (after the Place des Quinconces in Bordeaux and the Place de la Concorde in Paris) , with a size of 310 by 200 meters. The square is also larger than the squares de Zócalo in the Historic Center of Mexico City or the Red Square in Moscow. In the center is a statue of Louis XIV on horseback.