Tours is one of the largest cities in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France. It is the prefecture of the Indre-et-Loire department. The commune of Tours had 135,787 inhabitants as of 2017 while the population of the whole metropolitan area was 495,379.Tours sits on the lower reaches of the Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Formerly named Caesarodunum by its founder, Roman Emperor Augustus, it possesses one of the largest amphitheaters of the Roman Empire, the Tours Amphitheatre.