1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
France
Compare this sourced profile of Marseille, France before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Marseille—877,215, Europe/Paris, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: French commune in Bouches-du-Rhône, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur; the second largest city of France.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Marseille is GeoNames ID 2995469. Its recorded administrative path is Bouches-du-Rhone → Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur → France, and GeoNames classifies the place as a first-order administrative seat. Marseille occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2026-03-23; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Marseille ranks 634 by recorded population. Inside the 4 selected France entries it ranks 2; inside the 125 entries in its broad region it ranks 47. Its 877,215 population value is 1.25 times the 698,995 median for the country cohort and 1.32 times the 664,046 regional median. Marseille is rank 2 among the 4 selected France entries, so a percentage band would overstate this small cohort. Marseille's recorded value is above the country-cohort median but remains below twice that benchmark. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Marseille's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Turin at 269.597 km with 847,287 recorded people; Lyon at 275.917 km with 520,774 recorded people; Genoa at 311.121 km with 580,097 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 41.524 km. Compared with Turin, Marseille's recorded population is 1.04 times as large. Against Marseille, Turin follows Torino → Piedmont → Italy in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Italy cohort rather than France, uses Europe/Rome instead of Europe/Paris, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is below Marseille's. Against Marseille, Lyon follows Rhone → Rhone-Alpes → France in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected France cohort, uses the shared Europe/Paris identifier, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is below Marseille's. Against Marseille, Genoa follows Provincia di Genova → Liguria → Italy in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Italy cohort rather than France, uses Europe/Rome instead of Europe/Paris, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is below Marseille's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 1,090 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Marseille's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 2995469, the coordinate pair 43.2970 / 5.3811, country rank 2 of 4, and neighbor GeoNames 3165524 at 269.597 km bind Marseille to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Marseille's reference point is 43.2970° north and 5.3811° east. The IANA identifier Europe/Paris is shared by 4 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLA is shared by 429 rows. Marseille's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Marseille's point falls in the middle-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Marseille's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Marseille, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Marseille's closest other entries in this atlas are Turin (269.597 km), Lyon (275.917 km), Genoa (311.121 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Marseille, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2026-03-23; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.