Côte d’Azur is also popular in English as the French Riviera – it is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeastern corner of France, extending from Menton near the Italian border on the east to either Hyères or Cassis in the west. The Côte d’Azur was once one of the first resort areas in the world. It began as a health resort for ailing British tourists at the end of the 18th century, after that in the mid-19th century, when the railroad arrived, it became the playground and vacation spot of British, Russian, and other aristocrats, such as Queen Victoria and King Edward VII, when he was Prince of Wales.

In the first half of the 20th century it was visited by artists and writers such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Edith Wharton and Somerset Maugham, as well as wealthy Americans and Europeans. After World War II it became a popular destination for mass tourism and conventions, as well as a summer home and meeting place for celebrities from Brigitte Bardot to Elton John.

Officially, the Côte d’Azur is home to 163 nationalities with 83,962 foreign residents, although unofficial and semi-official estimates of the number of non-French nationals living in the area are often much higher. The French Riviera also contains the seaside resorts of Cannes, Antibes, Juan-les-Pins, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Beaulieu, Cap d’Ail, Fréjus, Saint-Raphaël, and Saint-Tropez, and surrounds the principality of Monaco, with a total population of over 2m.

Monaco