Versailles, Yvelines Département, Île-de-France Region, France

🇫🇷 Versailles is a city in the department of the Yvelines, Île-de-France, renowned world-wide for the Château de Versailles and the gardens of Versailles, designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Located in the western suburbs of the French capital, Versailles is in the 21st century a wealthy suburb of Paris with a service-based economy and a major tourist destination as well. A new town founded at the will of King Louis XIV, Versailles was the de facto capital of the Kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789, before becoming the cradle of the French Revolution. After having lost its status of royal city, it became the préfecture (regional capital) of the Seine-et-Oise département in 1790, then of Yvelines in 1968. It is also a Roman Catholic diocese.

Versailles is historically known for numerous treaties such as the Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolution, and the Treaty of Versailles, after World War I. Today, the Congress of France – the name given to the body created when both houses of the French Parliament, the National Assembly and the Senate, meet – gathers in the Château de Versailles to vote on revisions to the Constitution.

Geography Versailles is located 17.1 km (10.6 mi) west-southwest from the centre of Paris. The city sits on an elevated plateau, 130 to 140 metres (425 to 460 ft) above sea-level (whereas the elevation of the centre of Paris is only 33 m (108 ft) above sea level), surrounded by wooded hills: in the north the forests of Marly and Fausses-Reposes, and in the south the forests of Satory and Meudon.

The city (commune) of Versailles has an area of 26.18 km² (10.11 sq mi, or 6,469 acres), which is a quarter of the area of the city of Paris. In 1989, Versailles had a population density of 3,344/km² (8,660/sq mi), whereas Paris had a density of 20,696/km² (53,602/sq mi).

Born out of the will of a king, the city has a rational and symmetrical grid of streets. By the standards of the 18th century, Versailles was a very modern European city. Versailles was used as a model for the building of Washington, D.C., by Pierre Charles L'Enfant.

19th century to the present day The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 put Versailles in the limelight again. On 18 January 1871 the victorious Germans proclaimed the king of Prussia, Wilhelm I, emperor of Germany in the very Hall of Mirrors of the castle, in an attempt to take revenge for the conquests of Louis XIV two centuries earlier. Then in March of the same year, following the insurrection of the Paris Commune, the French Third Republic government under Thiers relocated to Versailles, and from there directed the military suppression of the insurrection. The government and the French parliament stayed in Versailles after the quelling of the Commune (May 1871), and it was even thought for some time that the capital of France would move definitely to Versailles in order to avoid the revolutionary mood of Paris in the future.

Restoration of a monarchy almost occurred in 1873, with parliament offering the crown to Henri, comte de Chambord, but his refusal to accept the tricolor flag that had been adopted during the Revolution made the restoration of monarchy impossible for the time being. Versailles became again the political centre of France, full of buzz and rumors, with its population briefly peaking at 61,686 in 1872, matching the record level of population reached on the eve of the French Revolution 83 years earlier. Eventually, however, left-wing republicans won a string of parliamentary elections, defeating the parties supporting a restoration of the monarchy, and the new majority decided to relocate the government to Paris in November 1879. Versailles then experienced a new population setback (48,324 inhabitants at the 1881 census). After that, Versailles never again functioned as the seat of the capital of France, but the presence of the French Parliament there in the 1870s left a vast hall, built in one aisle of the palace, which the French Parliament uses when it meets in Congress to amend the French Constitution, as well as when the President of France addresses the two chambers of the French Parliament.

Only in 1911 did Versailles definitely recover its level of population of 1789, with 60,458 inhabitants at the 1911 census. In 1919, at the end of the First World War, Versailles came into the limelight again as the various treaties ending the war were signed in the castle proper and in the Grand Trianon. After 1919, as the suburbs of Paris continued to expand, Versailles was absorbed by the urban area of Paris and the city experienced a strong demographic and economic growth, turning it into a large suburban city of the metropolitan area of Paris. The role of Versailles as an administrative and judicial centre has been reinforced in the 1960s and 1970s, and somehow Versailles has become the main centre of the western suburbs of Paris.

The centre of the town has kept its very bourgeois atmosphere, while more middle-class neighborhoods have developed around the train stations and in the outskirts of the city. Versailles is a chic suburb of Paris, well linked with the centre of Paris by several train lines. However, the city is extremely compartmentalized, divided by large avenues inherited from the monarchy which create the impression of several small cities ignoring each other. Versailles was never an industrial city, even though there are a few chemical and food-processing plants. Essentially, Versailles is a place of services, such as public administration, tourism, business congresses, and festivals. From 1951 until France's withdrawal from the NATO unified command in 1966, nearby Rocquencourt functioned as the site for SHAPE. Versailles is an important military centre, with several units and training schools headquartered at the Satory military base, which hosted the headquarters of the famed 2nd French Armored Division until 1999, and where a military exhibition is organized annually.

Culture Versailles' primary cultural attraction is the Palace, with its ornately decorated rooms and historic significance. The Potager du roi is a kitchen garden created under Louis XIV to supply fruits and vegetables to the Court. It is officially recognised as a Remarkable Garden of France.

The town also has other points of cultural notability; in recent times, its position as an affluent suburb of Paris has meant that it forms a part of the Paris artistic scene, and musical groups such as Phoenix, Air, Fuzati, and Daft Punk have some link to the city, as does the director Michel Gondry.

Sport Football Club de Versailles 78 is a semi-professional association football club founded in 1989. Their home stadium is the Stade de Montbauron, which has a capacity of 6,208 people.

Education The headquarters of the Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University are located in the city, as well as the ISIPCA, a post graduate school in perfume, cosmetics products and food flavor formulation.

Transport Versailles is served by Versailles-Chantiers station, which is an interchange station on Paris RER line C, on the Transilien La Défense suburban rail line, on the Transilien Paris-Montparnasse suburban rail line, and on several national rail lines, including low-frequency TGV service.

Versailles is also served by two other stations on Paris RER line C: Versailles-Château–Rive Gauche (the closest station to the Palace of Versailles and consequently the station most frequently used by tourists) and Porchefontaine.

Versailles is also served by two stations on the Transilien Paris-Saint-Lazare suburban rail line: Versailles-Rive Droite and Montreuil.