At the census, , people lived in the city proper, [ 7 ] while its metropolitan area had a population of , In the Middle Ages, Montpellier was an important city of the Crown of Aragon and was the birthplace of James I , and then of Majorca , before its sale to France in Since the s, Montpellier has experienced one of the strongest economic and demographic growths in the country. Numbering 70,, students comprise nearly one-fourth of its population, one of the highest such proportions in Europe.
Montpellier is the third-largest French city near the Mediterranean coast, behind Marseille and Nice. It is the seventh-largest city of France , and has also been the fastest-growing city in the country for 25 years. In the Early Middle Ages , the nearby episcopal town of Maguelone was the major settlement in the area but raids by pirates encouraged settlement a little farther inland.
In Charles Martel destroyed Maguelone. Montpellier, first mentioned in a document of , was founded under a local feudal dynasty, the Guilhem, who combined two hamlets and built a castle and walls around the united settlement. The name is from medieval Latin mons pisleri , "Woad Mountain" referring to the woad Latin pastellus , pestellus used for dyeing locally. There is no real "mountain" in the area, with the mons referring to a pile of stones. The two surviving towers of the city walls, the Tour des Pins and the Tour de la Babotte , were built later, around the year Montpellier came to prominence in the 12th centuryβas a trading centre, with trading links across the Mediterranean world, and a rich Jewish cultural life that flourished within traditions of tolerance of Muslims , Jews and Cathars βand later of its Protestants.
The city's faculties of law and medicine were established in by Cardinal Conrad of Urach , legate of Pope Honorius III ; the medical faculty has, over the centuries, been one of the major centres for the teaching of medicine in Europe.
This era marked the high point of Montpellier's prominence. The city became a possession of the Kings of Aragon in by the marriage of Peter II of Aragon with Marie of Montpellier , who was given the city and its dependencies as part of her dowry. Montpellier gained a charter in when Peter and Marie confirmed the city's traditional freedoms and granted the city the right to choose twelve governing consuls annually. Under the Kings of Aragon, Montpellier became a very important city, a major economic centre and the primary centre for the spice trade in the Kingdom of France.
