Caen ( ) is a commune in north-western France
.
It is the
prefecture of the Calvados
department and the capital of the
Basse-Normandie
region.
It is
located inland from the English Channel
.
Caen is
known for its historical buildings built during the reign of
William the Conqueror, who was
buried here, and for the Battle for Caen
—heavy fighting that took place in and around Caen
during the Battle of
Normandy
in 1944, destroying much of the town.
At 2 hours
north-west of Paris, and connected to the south of England by the
ferry line-Caen (Ouistreham
)-Portsmouth
, Caen is located in the centre of its northern
region, over which it exercises its political power, economic and
cultural.
City of William the Conqueror, the city has inherited a magnificent
heritage, it has tended over the centuries until the Second World
War, where it was also a key site of the Battle of Normandy. The
city has preserved the memory by building a memorial for
peace.
Located a
few miles from the coast, the landing beaches, the bustling resort
of Deauville
and Cabourg
, Norman Switzerland or Pays d'auge (often considered the archetype of
Normandy), Caen offers all possible services.
Populated intramural 113 249 inhabitants (population 2006), and the
leader of an urban area of 401 741 inhabitants, Caen is the first
city of Lower Normandy.
It is also the second largest municipality
(after Le
Havre
) and the third largest city (after Rouen and Le
Havre) of Normandy. The metropolitan area of Caen, in turn,
is the second of Normandy after that of Rouen, and occupies the
21st rank nationally.
Symbols
Heraldry
Current arms :
« Gules, a single-towered open castle Or, windowed
and masoned sable.
»
Under the
Ancien Régime :
Per
fess, gules and azure, 3 fleurs de lys Or.
During the
Premier Empire,
Gules,
a single-towered castle Or, a chief of Good Imperial Cities (gules,
3 bees Or).
File:Blason ville fr Caen ancien.svg|
Arms in effect under Ancien
Régime.
File:Blason Caen 1809.svg|
Arms requested from Napoléon
in 1809 which were refused.
File:Blason ville fr Caen (Calvados) Empire (Orn ext).svg|
Arms in effect under the Premier
Empire.
File:Blason ville fr Caen (Calvados) (Orn ext).svg|
Arms in effect today, reverting to the original arms of the
XIIIth century.
.
Motto
Today, Caen has no motto. But it used to have one, which did not
survive the French Revolution (hence the archaic spelling) :
« Un Dieu, un Roy.
Une Foy, une Loy.
»
(One God, one King. One Faith, one Law.)
Codes
Caen's
Home port code is
CN
History
In 1346 King
Edward III of
England led his army against the city hoping to loot it. On 26
July 1346 his troops
stormed the
city and sacked it, killing 3,000 of its citizens and burning
much of the merchants' quarter. During the attack English officials
searched its archives and found a copy of the
1339 Franco-Norman plot to invade
England, devised by
Philip VI of
France and Normandy. This was subsequently used as propaganda
to justify the supplying and financing of the conflict and its
continuation. Only the castle of Caen held out, despite attempts to
besiege it. A few days later the English left, marching to the east
and on to their victory at the
Battle of Crécy.
World War II
During the
Battle of
Normandy in World War II, Caen
was liberated in early July, a month after the Normandy landings, particularly those by
British I Corps on 6 June
1944. British
and Canadian
troops had intended to capture the town on D-Day. However they were held up north of the city
until 9 July, when an intense bombing campaign during Operation
Charnwood
destroyed much of the city but allowed the Allies
to seize its western quarters, a month later than Montgomery's
original plan. During the battle, many of the town's
inhabitants sought refuge in the
Abbaye aux Hommes (Men's
Abbey), built by
William the
Conqueror some 800 years before.
Post-war
Post-WWII work included the reconstruction of complete districts of
the city and the university campus. It took 14 years (1948-1962)
and led to the current urbanization of Caen.
Having lost many of
its historic quarters and its university campus in the war, the
city doesn't possess what some might call the 'feel' of a
traditional Normandy town such as Honfleur
, Rouen
, Cabourg, Deauville and Bayeux
.
The Canadian Army Film and Photo Unit filmed the D-Day offensive
and Orne breakout several weeks later, then returned several months
later to document the town's recovery efforts. The resulting film
You Can't Kill a City is preserved in the National
Archives of Canada.
Images
File:Escoville Angle.jpg|Hôtel d'Escoville, sixteenth century,
Caen
File:PlanCaenFortification.jpg|Anonymous
pen-and-ink bird's-eye view of the fortifications of Caen (Bibliotheque
Nationale
, Paris)File:Chateau_Caen.jpg|South Wall of
the Castle, a huge fortress in the centre of the cityFile:Caen
Hôtel de Ville.JPG|Town Hall of CaenFile:Gare de Caen.jpg|Caen
railway stationFile:Tramway de Caen Station.jpg|Caen's 'tramway' is
in fact a modern guided-bus systemFile:Normandie Calvados Caen6
tango7174.jpg|Saint-Étienne-le-Vieux Church
Etymology
Year 1070 of the Parker manuscript of the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers to Caen
as "Kadum" . Despite a lack of sources as to the origin of the
settlements, the name Caen would seem to be of
Gaulish origin, from the words
catu-,
referring to military activities and
magos, field, hence
meaning "manoeuvre field" or "battlefield".
Geography
Caen is in an area of high humidity.
The Orne River
flows through the city, as well as small rivers
known as les Odons, most of which have been buried under
the city to improve urban hygiene.
Caen is
from the Channel.
A canal
(Canal de
Caen à la Mer
) parallel to the Orne was built during the reign of
Napoleon III to link the city
to the sea at all times. The canal reaches the English
Channel at Ouistreham. A lock keeps the tide out of the canal and
lets large ships navigate up the canal to Caen's freshwater
harbours.
Main sights
Castle
The
castle, Château
de Caen
, built circa 1060 by William the Conqueror, who successfully
conquered England in
1066, is one of the largest medieval fortresses of Western Europe. It remained an
essential feature of
Norman strategy
and policy. At Christmas 1182 a
royal
court celebration for Christmas in the
aula
of Caen Castle brought together
Henry II and his sons,
Richard the Lionheart and
John Lackland, receiving more than a
thousand knights. Caen Castle, along with all of Normandy, was
handed over to the French Crown in 1204. The castle saw several
engagements during the
Hundred Years'
War (1346, 1417, 1450) and was in use as a barracks as late as
World War II. Today, the castle serves as a museum that houses the
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen (Museum of
Fine Arts of Caen) and
Musée de Normandie
(Museum of Normandy) along with many periodical exhibitions about
arts and history . (See
Timeline of Caen Castle)
Abbeys
In repentance for marrying his cousin
Mathilda of Flanders, William ordered
two
abbeys to be built on the
Pope's encouragement:
Others
Administration
The coat of arms of Caen.
Recent Mayors of Caen have included:
In 1952,
the small commune of Venoix
became part
of Caen.
In 1990,
the agglomeration of Caen was organized into a district,
transformed in 2002 into a Communauté
d'agglomération (Grand Caen (Greater Caen),
renamed Caen la Mer
in 2004), gathers 29 towns and villages, including Villons-les-Buissons
, Lions-sur-mer, Hermanville-sur-mer
, which joined the Communauté d'agglomération in
2004. The population of the "communauté d'agglomération" is
around 220000 inhabitants.
In the former administrative organisation, Caen was a part of 9
cantons, of which it is the chief
town. These cantons contain a total of 13 towns. Caen gives its
name to a 10th canton, of which it is not part.
Transport
Caen has a recently built, controversial
guided bus system—built by
Bombardier Transportation
and modelled on its
Guided Light Transit
technology—and a very efficient network of city buses, operated
under the name
Twisto. Faced with the
residents' anger against the project, the municipality had to
pursue the project with only 23% of the population in favour of the
new form of transport—residents were in favour of trams rather than
buses. The road layout of the city centre was deeply transformed
and the formerly traffic-jam-free centre's problems are still
unresolved. The city is also connected to the rest of the Calvados
département by the
Bus Verts du
Calvados bus network.
Caen -
Carpiquet Airport
is the biggest airport in Lower-Normandy
considering the number of passengers that it serves every year, and
offers commuting possibilities to the whole of Europe.
Most
flights are operated by Brit Air and
Chalair Aviation and the French
national airline Air France operates three daily flights to the
French city of Lyon
, while in
the summer there are many charter
flights to Spain
, the
United
Kingdom, Germany
, Tunisia
, Morocco
and Algeria
.
Caen is
served by the small port of Ouistreham, lying at the mouth of the Caen Canal
where it meets the English Channel. A ferry service operates between Portsmouth, England
and Caen/Ouistreham running both standard
roll-on-roll-off car ferries and supercat fast ferries, with the
latter making crossing from March to November. The ferry
terminal is from Caen with a daytime shuttle bus service for foot
passengers.
Caen is
connected to the rest of France by motorways to Paris
(A13), Brittany
(A84) and soon to Le Mans
(A88-A28). The A13 is a
toll road while the A84 is a toll-free motorway.
The city is encircled by the
N814 ring-road that was
completed in the late 1990s.
The N13
connects Caen to Cherbourg
and to Paris. A
section of the former N13 (Caen-Paris) is now D613 (in Calvados)
following road renumbering.
The N814 ring-road includes an impressive
viaduct called the Viaduc de Calix that goes over the canal and
River
Orne. The canal links the city to the sea to
permit cargo ships and ferries to dock in
the port of
Caen
. Ferries which have docked include the
Quiberon and the
Duc de Normandie.
Although a fraction of what it used to be remains, Caen once
boasted an extensive rail and tram network. From 1895 until 1936
the
Compagnie des Tramways
Electriques de Caen (Electrical Tramway Company of Caen)
operated all around the city.
Caen also had several main and branch railway lines linking Caen railway station
to all parts of Normandy with lines to Paris
, Vire
, Flers
, Cabourg, Houlgate
, Deauville, Saint-Lô
, Bayeux and Cherbourg. Now only the electrified line of
Paris-Cherbourg, Caen-Le
Mans and Caen-Rennes
subsist
with minimal services.
Education
- The
University of Caen, Université de Caen
, has around 25 000 students in three
different campuses, all linked by a tramway. The University
is divided into 11 colleges, called UFR (Unité
fondamentale de Recherche), 6 institutes, 1 Engineering
School, 2 IUP and five local campus. The University is one of the
oldest in France, having been founded by Henry VI, King of England in
1432.
Miscellaneous
centre
Citations
Great rich city, spacious, beautiful rivers, its meadows, its
seaport full of ships laden with goods, it is adorned with so many
churches, houses and inhabitants, it is hardly that she recognizes
less than Paris.GUILLAUME LE BRETON. Philippide, 1. VIII.
This country is beautiful, and Caen's most beautiful city, the more
attractive, the merrier, the better situated, the most beautiful
streets, the most beautiful buildings, the most beautiful churches,
meadows, walking, and finally the source All of our wits.MME DE
SÉVIGNÉ
Caen today deserves some praise to him once so liberally granted.
In its churches, its hotels, for the decoration of some of its
houses, it is actually a vast museum that provides the observer
subjects of study most interesting and varied.EUGÈNE ROBILLARD DE
BEAUREPAIRE, 1883
Famous Caennais
Caen was the birthplace of:
- Robert, 1st Earl of
Gloucester (c. 1090-1147), illegitimate son of Henry I of England
- Jean Bertaut (1552-1611), poet
- François
Le Métel de Boisrobert (1592-1662), poet
- François de Malherbe
(1555-1628), poet, critic
and translator (Malherbe's birthplace has survived)
- Tanneguy Le Fèvre
(1615-1672), classical scholar
- Jean Renaud de Segrais
(1624-1701), poet and novelist
- Pierre Daniel Huet
(1630-1721), churchman and scholar
- René
Auguste Constantin de Renneville (1650-1723), writer
- Pierre Varignon (1654-1722),
mathematician
- Charlotte Corday (d. 1793),
assassin of Marat
- François Henri Turpin
(1709-1799), man of literature
- Jean de Crèvecoeur
(1735–1813), French-American writer
- Jean-Jacques Boisard
(1744–1833), writer who specialized in
fables
- Gervais Delarue (1751-1835),
historian
- Louis
Gustave le Doulcet, Comte de Pontécoulant (1764-1853),
politician
- Daniel Auber (1782-1871), composer
- Jacques Amand
Eudes-Deslongchamps (1794-1867), French naturalist
and palaeontologist
- Étienne Mélingue
(1808-1875), actor and sculptor
- Jules Danbé (1840-1905) opera
conductor
- André Danjon (1890-1967),
astronomer
- Marie-Pierre
Koenig (1898-1970), general who commanded a Free French Brigade at the Battle of
Bir Hakeim
in 1942, Maréchal de France
- Joel Thomas (1987- ), Professional
football player with Scottish team Hamilton Academical
International relations
Twin towns — Sister cities
Caen is
twinned with:
Caen has
been twinned with Alexandria, Virginia
, USA since 1991. The
sister city relationship sees delegations
visiting between the two cities on a regular basis. Exchanges of
students have been common. Musicians and choirs from the two cities
have also made very successful exchange visits. The
Toussaint/Halloween period is a time of year when a delegation from
Caen will often visit Alexandria.
See also
Notes
External links
, formerly the Abbaye aux Hommes (Men's
Abbey). It was completed in 1063 and is dedicated to
St Stephen. The current Hôtel de
Ville (town hall) of Caen is built
onto the South Transept of the building.
, formerly the Abbaye aux Dames (Women's
Abbey). It was completed in 1060 and is dedicated to the
Holy Trinity. The current seat of
the regional council (conseil
régional) of Basse-Normandie
, a historic botanical
garden
, or abbey church of Saint-Étienne
, where a slab marks the place of the tomb of
William the Conqueror, though
his bones were scattered by Huguenots in
1562, during the French Wars of
Religion.
. The park receives 110,000 visitors every
year.
is a regional shopping
centre in adjoining Mondeville
.
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