Metz is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz has a rich 3,000-year history, having variously been a Celtic oppidum, an important Gallo-Roman city, the Merovingian capital of Austrasia, the birthplace of the Carolingian dynasty, a cradle of the Gregorian chant, and one of the oldest republics in Europe. The city has been steeped in French culture, but has been strongly influenced by German culture due to its location and history.

Because of its historical, cultural and architectural background, Metz has been submitted on France's UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List.The city features noteworthy buildings such as the Gothic Saint-Stephen Cathedral with its largest expanse of stained-glass windows in the world, the Basilica of Saint-Pierre-aux-Nonnains being the oldest church in France, its Imperial Station Palace displaying the apartment of the German Kaiser, or its Opera House, the oldest one working in France. Metz is home to some world-class venues including the Arsenal Concert Hall and the Centre Pompidou-Metz museum.

Metz has several venues for the performing arts. The Opera House of Metz, the oldest working opera house in France, features plays, dance and lyric poetry. The Arsenal Concert Hall, dedicated to art music, is widely renowned for its excellent acoustics. The Trinitarians Club is a multimedia arts complex housed in the vaulted cellar and chapel of an ancient convent, the city's prime venue for jazz music. The Music Box (French: Boîte à Musique), familiarly known as BAM, is the concert venue dedicated to rock and electronic music. The Braun Hall and the Koltès Theater feature plays, and the city has two movie theaters specializing in Auteur cinema. The Saint-Jacques Square, surrounded by busy bars and pubs whose open-air tables fill the centre of the square.

Since 2014, the former bus garage has been converted to accommodate over thirty artists in residence, in a space where they can create and rehearse artworks and even build set decorations. The artistic complex, called Metz Network of All Cultures and familiarly known as TCRM-Blida.