Marseilles, in point of population the third city of France, being surpassed by Paris and Lyons only, is the chief town of the department Bouches-du-Rhône, and is situated on the south coast, about 27 miles E. of the mouth of the Rhone. The principal commercial port of France, if not of the entire Mediterranean, Marseilles is entered annually by 7500 vessels (average for the period 1885-95) of 4,500,000 tons burden; of this commerce nearly three-fourths is French, the British being more than one-seventh. The total tonnage of Spain, Italy, Greece, and Holland together is only a little more than the British. The imports and exports together reach an annual value of 65 to 70 millions sterling, three-fifths being for imports. Wheat, oil-seeds, coal (300,000 to 345,000 tons), wine, spirits, and beer, sugar, maize, oats, barley, coffee, olive, palm, and cotton oils, pepper, flour, and tallow figure most prominently, in the order named, amongst the imports; whilst the exports consist chiefly of clay tiles, wheat, oil-cakes, flour, sugar, oil, wine and spirits, soap, and candles. Marseilles is the headquarters of the Messageries Maritimes, Générale Transatlantique, Marseillaise, and other great French commercial companies. An average of 29,790 emigrants, of whom only 1500 are French, embark from this port every year. The harbour accommodation consists of the old harbour, a natural basin of nearly 70 acres, running into the heart of the city; a series of new docks, quays, and warehouses (La Joliette, &c.) extending fully a mile along the shore to the west of the old harbour, and covering about a hundred acres; and an outer roadstead between the dams to these docks and a breakwater constructed in deeper water; besides dry-docks, wet-docks, slips, &c. The industry of the place is very considerable, the first place being taken by soap, vegetable oils, and oil-cake; soda, sugar, macaroni, iron, lead, zinc, tiles, and leather are manufactured. Several hundreds of men are employed in the flour-mills and in the wine-vaults. There is a prosperous fishing fleet.
The city of Marseilles is built on the slopes that overlook the old harbour, and at the foot, and has of late years extended to the south-east. Although greatly improved since 1853, the sanitary condition still leaves something to be desired. Its memorable buildings include the new Byzantine basilica, which serves as a cathedral; the pilgrimage church, Notre Dame de la Garde, with an image of the Virgin greatly venerated by sailors and fishermen, and with innumerable ex-voto offerings, built in 1864 on the site of an old chapel of 1214; the church of St Victor (1200), with subterranean chapel and catacombs of the 11th century; the health office of the port, with fine paintings by Vernet, David, Gérard, and Guérin; the museum of antiquities, in the Château Borély; the Longchamp palace, a very fine Renaissance building (1870), which shelters in one wing the picture-gallery, and in the other the natural history museum; the public library, with 95,000 volumes and 1530 MSS. The public institutions embrace a botanical and a zoological garden, a marine and an astronomical observatory, a faculty of sciences, and schools of medicine, fine arts, Oriental languages, music, commerce, hydrography. Pop. (1861) 260,910; (1886) 376,143; (1891) 321,499, including a colony of 40,000 Italians. Marseilles was the birthplace of Pytheas, Petronius, Thiers, and Puget.
One of the oldest towns in France, Marseilles was founded by Phœcians from Asia Minor six hundred years before Christ. It was for many centuries, down to 300 A.D., a centre of Greek civilisation. The Greeks called it Massalia, the Romans Massilia. As the rival of Carthage it sided with Rome. It supported Pompey against Cæsar, but was taken by the latter in 49 B.C., after an obstinate defence. During subsequent ages it fell into the hands of the Saracens (9th century), Charles of Anjou and Provence (13th century), Alphonso V. of Aragon (1423), and Henry III. of France (1575). In 1112 it had become a republic; but in 1660 it was deprived by Louis XIV. of the privileges it had enjoyed as a free port almost from its foundation. The years 1720 and 1721 are memorable for the devastations of the plague in the port, when nearly half the population of 100,000 perished, and for the splendid heroism of Bishop Belsunce and the Chevalier Rose. It was the scene of stirring events in 1792 and 1793, and sent large bands of cut-throats to Paris, besides keeping sufficient at home to carry on wholesale murders. In 1871 Marseilles, always notorious for its extreme republicanism and lawlessness, proclaimed the commune. Its commerce has grown rapidly since the conquest of Algiers and the opening of the Suez Canal.
See the statistical and historical works of Favre, of Boudin, and of Mathieu (1879), and the topographical account of Saurel (1884).