de Compostela pilgrimage route. The city's unique architecture made of pinkish terracotta bricks has earned Toulouse the nickname ("The Pink city"). Geography Toulouse is in the south of France, north of the department of Haute-Garonne, on the axis of communication between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The city is about 100 km from the Pyrenees and the borders with Andorra and Spain. Hydrography The city is traversed by the Canal de Brienne, the Canal du Midi and the rivers Garonne, Touch and Hers-Mort. Climate Toulouse has a temperate humid subtropical climate (Cfa in the Köppen climate classification). Too much precipitation during the summer months prevents the city from being classified as a Mediterranean climate zone. History Early history The Garonne Valley was a central point for trade between the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic since at least the Iron Age. The historical name of the city, Tolosa (Τολῶσσα in Greek, and of its inhabitants, the Tolosates, first recorded in the 2nd century BC), is of unknown meaning or origin, possibly from Aquitanian or Iberian, but it has also been connected to the name of the Gaulish Volcae Tectosages, or to the 'same root as Irish tulach or Welsh twlch, (little hill). Toulouse refounded by the Romans on the banks of the Garonne Tolosa enters the historical period in the 2nd century BC, when it became a Roman military outpost. After the conquest of Gaul, it was developed as a Roman city in Gallia Narbonensis. Under the reign of Emperor Augustus and thanks to the Pax Romana, the Romans moved the city a few kilometres from the hills where it was an oppidum to the banks of the Garonne, which were more suitable for trade. In the second half of the 1st century, the emperor Domitian distinguished Toulouse by placing it under the patronage of the goddess Pallas Athena, so that the Latin poets Martial, Ausonius and Sidonius Apollinaris called the city Palladia Tolosa (Palladian Toulouse), a term that was still used in the Renaissance and even today when the city is presented as propitious to the arts and letters. Around the year 250, Toulouse was marked by the martyrdom of Saturnin, the first bishop of Toulouse. This episode illustrates the difficult beginnings of Christianity in Roman Gaul. Capital of the Visigothic kingdom In the 5th century, Toulouse fell to the Visigothic kingdom and became one of its