Nice City Map Poster

About Nice

The English name Nice comes from the Greek Νίκαια (Níkaia), which was a part of the ancient colony and later city of Nicaea, founded by Greeks in about 600 BC. The pre-Greek root is seen in the local name of the hills that face the town, "Nikaïa" or "Cimiez", meaning "by/next to/alongside Nikaia". According to a theory cited by Pliny's Natural History,[10] these were called 'Όλυμποι' (Olympos) because they had once been covered with forests ("εἴων ὀρεινῶν προτέρω τὰς ὄψεις λύγος").[11] Some have interpreted this as meaning that there was once an island here where timber trees grew; Nika being an archaic form for peninsula.