Strasbourg (IPA: /stÊ€azbuÊ€/; Alsatian: Strossburi; German: Straßburg) is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region of northeastern France, with approximately 650,000 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 1999. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the prefecture (capital) of the Bas-Rhin department.
Strasbourg is the seat of, among other things, the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights, the European Ombudsman, the Eurocorps, the European Audiovisual Observatory, and, most famously, the European Parliament's plenary sessions, although sessions are also held in Brussels.
Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as of road, rail, and river communications. The port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Duisburg, Germany. The city is the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine.
Strasbourg's historic centre, the Grande Île ('Grand Island'), was classified a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honour was placed on an entire city centre.
EtymologyThe city's Frenchified name is of Germanic origin and means 'town (at the crossing) of roads'. Stras- is cognate to the English street from the equivalent German cognate, Straße/Strasse, while -bourg is cognate to the English borough and the German -burg ('fortress, town, citadel').
GeographyStrasbourg is situated on the Ill River, where it flows into the Rhine on the border with Germany. The German town across the Rhine is Kehl. The city is situated in the Rhine valley, approximately 20 km east of the Vosges Mountains and 25 km west of the Black Forest. Winds coming from either direction being generally held up by these natural barriers, summer temperatures can be inordinately high. The defective natural ventilation also makes Strasbourg one of the most atmospherically polluted cities of France, although the progressive disappearance of heavy industry as well as effective measures of traffic regulation in and around the city are showing encouraging results.
Main sightsThe city is chiefly known for its sandstone Gothic Cathedral with its famous astronomical clock, and for its medieval cityscape of Rhineland black and white timber-framed buildings, particularly in the Petite-France district alongside the Ill and in the streets and squares surrounding the cathedral, where the renowned Maison Kammerzell stands out.
In addition to the cathedral, Strasbourg houses several other medieval churches that have survived the many wars and destructions that have plagued the city: the Romanesque Eglise Saint-Etienne, partly destroyed in 1944 by Anglo-American bombing raids, the part Romanesque, part Gothic, very large Eglise Saint-Thomas with its Silbermann organ on which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Albert Schweitzer played, the Gothic Eglise Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune Protestant with its crypt dating back to the 5th century and its cloister partly from the 11th century, the Gothic Eglise Saint-Guillaume with its fine early-Renaissance stained glass and furniture, the Gothic Eglise Saint-Jean etc. The Neo-Gothic church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Catholique (there is also an adjacent church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Protestant) serves as a shrine for several 15th-century wood worked and painted altars coming from other, now destroyed churches and installed there for public display. Among the numerous secular medieval buildings, the monumental Ancienne Douane (old custom-house) stands out.
The German Renaissance has bequeathed the city some noteworthy buildings (especially the current Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie, former town hall, on Place Gutenberg), as did the French Baroque and Classicism with several hôtels particuliers (i.e. palaces), among which the Palais Rohan (now housing three museums) is the most spectacular. Other buildings of its kind are the Hôtel du Préfet, the Hôtel des Deux-Ponts and the city-hall Hôtel de Ville etc. The largest baroque building of Strasbourg though is the 1720s main building of the Hôpital civil. As for French Neo-classicism, it is the Opera House on Place Broglie that most prestigiously represents this style.
Strasbourg also offers high-class eclecticist buildings in its very extended German district, being the main memory of Wilhelmian architecture since most of the major cities in Germany proper suffered intensive damages during World War II. Streets, boulevards and avenues are homogeneous, surprisingly high (up to seven stories) and broad examples of German urban lay-out and of this architectural style that summons and mixes up five centuries of European architecture as well as Neo-Egyptian, Neo-Greek and Neo-Babylonian styles. The former imperial palace Palais du Rhin, the most political and thus heavily criticized of all German Strasbourg buildings epitomizes the grand scale and stylistic sturdiness of this period. But the two most handsome and ornate buildings of these times are the École internationale des Pontonniers (the former Jungmädchenschule, young girls school) with its towers, turrets and multiple round and square angles and the École des Arts décoratifs with its lavishly ornate facade of painted bricks, woodwork and majolica.
Impressive examples of Prussian military architecture of the 1880s can be found along the newly reopened Rue du Rempart, displaying large scale fortifications among which the aptly named Kriegstor (war gate).
As for modern and contemporary architecture, Strasbourg possesses some fine Art Nouveau buildings (the huge Palais des Fêtes, some houses and villas on Avenue de la Robertsau and Rue Sleidan), good examples of post-World War II functional architecture (the Cité Rotterdam, for which Le Corbusier did not succeed in the architectural contest) and, in the very extended Quartier Européen, some spectacular administrative buildings of sometimes utterly large size, among which the European Court of Human Rights by Richard Rogers is arguably the finest. Other noticeable contemporary buildings are the new Music school Cité de la Musique et de la Danse, the Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain and the Hôtel du Département facing it, as well as, in the outskirts, the tramway-station Hoenheim-Nord designed by Zaha Hadid.
The city is also home to beautiful bridges, among which the medieval Ponts Couverts with its four towers is the most spectacular.
Next to it is a part of the 17th-century Vauban fortifications, the Barrage Vauban. Other nice bridges are the ornate 19th-century Pont de la Fonderie (stone) and Pont d'Auvergne (iron), as well as the futuristic Passerelle over the Rhine, opened in 2004.
ParksStrasbourg features a number of prominent parks, of which several are of cultural and historical interest: the Parc de l'Orangerie, created for Joséphine de Beauharnais and displaying noteworthy French gardens, a neo-classical castle and a small zoo; the Parc de la Citadelle, built around impressive remains of the 17th-century fortress erected close to the Rhine by Vauban; the Parc de Pourtalès, laid out in English style around a Neo-baroque castle that now houses the Schiller International University, and featuring an open-air museum of contemporary sculpture (overview). The Jardin Botanique (botanical garden) was created under the German administration next to the Observatory of Strasbourg, built in 1881, and still owns some greenhouses of those times. The Parc des Contades, although the oldest park of the city, was completely remodeled after World War II. The futuristic Parc des Poteries is an example of European park-conception in the late 1990s. The Jardin des deux Rives, spread over Strasbourg and Kehl on both sides of the Rhine, is the most recent (2004) and most extended (60 hectare) park of the agglomeration.
MuseumsFor a city of comparatively small size, Strasbourg displays a large quantity and variety of museums:
The metropolitan area of Strasbourg includes 650,000 inhabitants, while the Eurodistrict has 868,000 inhabitants.[7]
CultureStrasbourg is the seat of some internationally reputed institutions in the musical and dramatic domain :
Other theatres are the Théâtre jeune public, the TAPS Scala, the Kafteur...
EducationStrasbourg, which was a humanism centre, has a long history of higher-education excellence, merging French and German intellectual traditions. Although Strasbourg had been annexed by the Kingdom of France in 1683, it still remained connected to the German-speaking intellectual world throughout the 18th century and the university attracted numerous students from the Holy Roman Empire, including Goethe, Metternich and Montgelas, who studied law in Strasbourg, among the most prominent. Nowadays, Strasbourg is known to offer among the best university courses in France, after Paris.
There are three universities in Strasbourg:
The prestigious Institut d'études politiques de Strasbourg is part of Robert Schuman University.
The campus of the École Nationale d'Administration (ENA) is located in Strasbourg (the former one being in Paris). The location of the 'new' ENA - which trains most of the nation's high-ranking civil servants - was meant to give a European vocation to the school.
The École supérieure des Arts décoratifs (ESAD) is an art school of Europe-wide reputation.
The permanent campus of the International Space University (ISU) is located in the south of Strasbourg (Illkirch-Graffenstaden).
Transport systemsA modern-looking tram system has operated in Strasbourg since 1994 by the regional transit company Compagnie des Transports Strasbourgeois. A former tram system, partly following a different route, had been operation since 1878 but was ultimately dismantled in 1960.
Two TGV lines are planned to link Strasbourg to the European high-speed train network:
Strasbourg is:
Strasbourg also houses the Eurocorps headquarters as well as the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine, the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines ([8]) and the Franco-German television channel, Arte.
France and Germany are creating a Eurodistrict straddling the Rhine, combining the Greater Strasbourg and the Ortenau district of Baden-Württemberg, with some common administration. The combined population of this district is 868,000. [9]
Famous peopleIn chronological order, famous people born in Strasbourg include: Johannes Tauler, Sebastian Brant, Jean Baptiste Kléber, Ludwig I of Bavaria, Gustave Doré, Émile Waldteufel, Jean Arp, Charles Münch, Hans Bethe, Marcel Marceau, Tomi Ungerer and Arsène Wenger.
In chronological order, famous residents of Strasbourg include: Johannes Gutenberg, Martin Bucer, John Calvin, Hans Baldung, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, Georg Büchner, Louis Pasteur, Ferdinand Braun, Albrecht Kossel, Georg Simmel, Albert Schweitzer, Otto Klemperer, Marc Bloch, Alberto Fujimori, Paul Ricoeur and Jean-Marie Lehn.
Twin townsStrasbourg is twinned with:
