拾步 馬賽 Marseilles Photos by Tony Kwok

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Marseille, also spelled Marseilles, ancient Massilia, or Massalia, city, capital of Bouches-du-Rhône département, southern France, and also the administrative and commercial capital of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, one of France’s fastest growing régions. Located west of the French Riviera, Marseille is one of the major ports of the Mediterranean Sea. It is situated on the Mediterranean’s Gulf of Lion within a semicircle of limestone hills and lies 536 miles (863 kilometres) south-southeast of Paris by rail and 218 miles southeast of Lyon. Area city proper, 93 square miles (241 square kilometres); metropolitan area, 365 square miles (946 square kilometres). Pop. (1999) city, 807,071; metropolitan area, 1,349,772; (2005 est.) city, 826,700; metropolitan area, 1,384,000.
Founded more than 2,500 years ago, the port city of Marseille (English conventional spelling Marseilles) has a history of vigorous independence asserted against central authority in a variety of forms. It retained its status as a free city even after falling to Julius Caesar’s troops in the 1st century bc, and after centuries of decline it was revived and allowed great independence under the local control of the viscounts of Provence in the 10th–14th centuries. After Provence joined the Kingdom of France in the 15th century, Marseille retained a separate administration and continually engaged in spirited revolt against kings or governments that threatened its liberties. It was for this reason that in 1800, when France was divided into the present administrative départements, Marseille was only reluctantly granted its status as capital of the Bouches-du-Rhône.
Frenchmen elsewhere, convinced that the Mediterranean climes of Provence could never be fully integrated into either the French realm or the Gallic spirit, long looked upon Marseille as a sort of folkloric institution: a place of comic anecdote and dialect, with a seasoning of picturesque criminality; a place where the citizens played a peculiar form of outdoor bowling known as pétanque, concocted the glorious garlic- and saffron-flavoured fish stew known as bouillabaisse, and consumed rich, savory, absinthe-like Provençal pastis.
By whatever proportion fact may have been coloured with myth in its image, Marseille undoubtedly forms a major element in the economic and social structure of France. With Aix-en-Provence it forms the second largest urban agglomeration in France, and in association with the outport of Fos-sur-Mer, about 23 miles (37 kilometres) to the northwest, it is the country’s largest seaport. Under the Socialist mayor Gaston Defferre, whose administration, from 1953 until his death in 1986, was the longest in its history, Marseille experienced major transformation—a process that is still continuing.
馬賽（法語：Marseille）是法國第二大城市和第三大都會區（aire urbaine）。在2011年的人口普查中，有1,720,941名居民。它位於地中海沿岸，原屬於普羅旺斯省（Provence）。它是法國最大的商業港口，也是地中海最大的商業港口。
馬賽是普羅旺斯-阿爾卑斯-藍色海岸大區的首府，也是隆河河口省的首府。
馬賽是由來自福西亞（Phocaea）的古希臘人於公元前600年作為一個貿易港而興建的，原取名為馬西利亞（希臘文：Μασσαλία 英語：Massalia；參見各地傳統的希臘化古稱列表）。它被凱爾特人蹂躪過，然後又被古羅馬征服。在古羅馬時代，它被稱為Massilia。在中世紀時，這裏的商業繁華，威尼斯共和國的商人也會到這裏做生意。
1348年黑死病襲擊馬賽，2萬5千市民死了1萬5千。
1830年法國殖民阿爾及利亞和1869年蘇伊士運河開通之後，作為商業港口的馬賽，獲得了更多的發展機會。
1934年，南斯拉夫王國亞歷山大一世抵達港口並會見了法國外交部長路易·巴爾杜。他在那裏被Vlada Georgieff暗刺身亡，刺殺者對亞歷山大拒絕承認克羅地亞為一個獨立國家而感到憤怒。
二戰時期，1942年至1944年，馬賽被德軍佔領。