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Rang

La Ville Rose

Toulouse

The pink city of south-west France, built of flat rosy bricks, once rich on a blue dye plant.

Toulouse ( Haute-Garonne , France), view on Saint-Sernin basilica.
Photo: Tonio94 ( talk · contribs ), CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Why Toulouse is brick pink

Toulouse is called la Ville Rose, the pink city. Stone is scarce in the plain of the Garonne, so builders used a broad, flat brick made from local clay. It fires to a colour between pink and orange that changes through the day and turns deep rose at sunset. The basilica of Saint-Sernin, the Capitole and the old mansions are all built of it. Some of those mansions were paid for by blue. In the 15th and 16th centuries the region grew woad, a plant whose leaves give a blue dye, known locally as pastel, and Toulouse merchants made fortunes from it before indigo took over. The city's flower, the violet, adds a third colour.

Brick pink#D98C73Woad blue#5F7FA8Violet#7F4FA3Garonne green-grey#7F8F7A

Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.

Colours tied to Toulouse

IndigoA deep blue dye from plants, now mostly made synthetically and known for colouring denimPinkA light tint of red, named after the pink flower and used in art, fashion, and cultureWoadA blue dye once vital to Europe's textile trade, made from the leaves of a flowering plant
About this page

Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Toulouse" on Wikipedia. If you know Toulouse and we have it wrong, tell us.

More colour cities

All colour cities
🇫🇷 Painted half-timbered AlsaceColmarTimber-framed houses in pink, yellow, blue and green lean over small canals in eastern France.🇫🇷 The lemon townMentonThe last French town before Italy, with an old quarter in ochre and yellow and a famous lemon festival.🇫🇷 The ochre villageRoussillonA Provençal hill village built on, and painted with, cliffs of red, orange and yellow ochre.🇮🇳 The Pink CityJaipurThe walled city wears a dusty terracotta pink, first painted on for a royal visit in 1876 and kept ever since.🇮🇳 Town of Holi coloursVrindavanFor Holi the temple town of Krishna's childhood fills with clouds of pink, yellow and green powder.🇧🇩 Rickshaw art capitalDhakaHundreds of thousands of cycle rickshaws carry hand-painted panels of film stars, birds and flowers.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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