The city of Lille proper had a population of , in within its small municipal territory of 35 km 2 14 sq mi , [ 7 ] but together with its French suburbs and exurbs the Lille metropolitan area French part only , which extends over 1, km 2 sq mi , had a population of 1,, that same year Jan.
The city of Lille and 94 suburban French municipalities have formed since the European Metropolis of Lille , an indirectly elected metropolitan authority now in charge of wider metropolitan issues, with a population of 1,, at the Jan. Nicknamed in France the "Capital of Flanders", Lille and its surroundings belong to the historical region of Romance Flanders , a former territory of the county of Flanders that is not part of the linguistic area of West Flanders.
A garrison town as evidenced by its Citadel , Lille has had an eventful history from the Middle Ages to the French Revolution. Very often besieged during its history, it belonged successively to the Kingdom of France , the Burgundian State , the Holy Roman Empire of Germany and the Spanish Netherlands before being definitively attached to the France of Louis XIV following the War of Spanish Succession along with the entire territory making up the historic province of French Flanders.
Lille was again under siege in during the Franco-Austrian War , and in and It was severely tested by the two world wars of the 20th century during which it was occupied and suffered destruction.
A merchant city since its origins and a manufacturing city since the 16th century, the Industrial Revolution made it a great industrial capital, mainly around the textile and mechanical industries. Their decline, from the s onwards, led to a long period of crisis and it was not until the s that the conversion to the tertiary sector and the rehabilitation of the disaster-stricken districts gave the city a different face.
