Caen

Commune of Caen

Abbaye aux Hommes in 2004
Région Basse-Normandie
(capital)
Département Calvados (préfecture)
Arrondissement Caen
Canton Chief town of 9 cantons
Intercommunality Communauté d'agglomération
Caen la Mer
Mayor Brigitte Le Brethon (2001-2008)
Land area¹ 25.70 km²
Population² (1999) 113,987
Population density
(1999)		 4,435 pers./km²
Altitude 2 m - 73 m (avg. 8 m)
INSEE/Postal code 14118 / 14000, 14300
1 French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km².
2 Not counting those already counted in another commune (such as students and military personnel).

Caen is a city and a commune of northwestern France. It is the préfecture (administrative capital) of the Calvados département, and the capital of the administrative Basse-Normandie (Lower Normandy) région. Population 115,000, total urban sprawl around 200,000. The inhabitants are called Caennais.

Caen is known for historical buildings built in the time of William the Conqueror, who was buried here, and for the Battle for Caen—the heavy fighting that took place in and around Caen during the Battle of Normandy in 1944.

History

Location within France
Location within France
Hôtel d'Escoville, 16th century, Caen
Hôtel d'Escoville, 16th century, Caen
Anonymous pen-and-ink bird's-eye view of the fortifications of Caen (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris)
Anonymous pen-and-ink bird's-eye view of the fortifications of Caen (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris)
South Wall of the Castle, a huge fortress in the center of the city
South Wall of the Castle, a huge fortress in the center of the city
Town Hall of Caen
Town Hall of Caen
Caen train station.
Caen train station.
Caen's 'tramway' is in fact a modern guided-bus system.
Caen's 'tramway' is in fact a modern guided-bus system.

Almost exactly 600 years before the town was ruined in 1944, it was similarly ravaged by war, when in 1346 King Edward III of England led his army against it, hoping to loot the town, which was the richest in Normandy at that time. On the 26th July his English troops stormed the town and sacked it, killing 3,000 citizens and burning much of the merchant's quarter. Only the castle held out until the English left a few days later, marching to the east and their victory at the Battle of Crecy.

During the Battle of Normandy in World War II, Caen saw intense and bitter combat between Allied and Axis forces. After the British I Corps landing at Sword Beach on June 6, 1944, progress stalled oustide Caen. British and Canadian troops finally broke through on July 9, after dropping thousands of bombs in Operation Charnwood. Bombers destroyed much of the city, but allowed the Allies to seize the western end of Caen, a month after Montgomery's original plan. In the battle, many of the town's inhabitants had sought refuge in the Abbaye aux Hommes, built on the orders of William the Conqueror some 800 years before. Post-WWII rebuilding took 14 years (1948-1962) and led to the current urbanization of Caen.

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 at the National Archives of Canada.

Geography

Caen is built in an area of high humidity. The Orne flows through Caen, as well as different small rivers known as les Odons, most of them having been buried under the city to improve urban hygiene.

Caen sits 10 km away from the Channel. A canal was built under Napoleon III and runs parallel to the river Orne to link Caen to the sea at all times. The canal reaches the English Channel at Ouistreham. A lock enables the canal to withstand the effects of the tide and permits large ships to navigate up the canal to Caen's freshwater harbours.

Monuments

Castle

The castle (Château de Caen), built ca. 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 it serves as a museum enclosure.

Abbeys

In repentance for marrying his cousin Mathilda of Flanders, William also ordered two abbeys to be built:

Others

  • Saint-Pierre Cathedral.
  • Memorial pour la Paix, a Museum for Peace established in 1988, charting the events leading up to and after D-Day. It is an emotional presentation inviting meditation on the thought of Elie Wiesel: "Peace is not a gift from God to man, but a gift from man to himself". The Museum for Peace also includes an exhibit of Nobel Peace Prize winners and another on Conflict Resolution in different cultures.
  • Saint Étienne abbey-church, 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.
  • Parc Festyland, an amusement park to the West of Caen in the nearby commune of Carpiquet. The park receives 110000 visitors per annum.

Administration

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, renamed Caen la Mer in 2004) which gathers 29 communes, including Villons-les-Buissons which recently (in 2004) joined the agglomeration.

Caen is part of 9 cantons, of which it is the chief town chief town. These cantons contain a total of 13 communes and have a total population of 162,707 inhabitants. Caen gives its name to a 10th canton, of which it is not part.

Transport

Caen has an innovative and controversial guided bus system - built by Bombardier Transportation's and modelled on its Guided Light Transit technology - and a very efficient network of city buses, operated under the name Twisto. Faced with the caennais' 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. Caen city centre's road layout was deeply changed and to this date the formerly traffic-jam free centre's problems are still unresolved.

Caen-Carpiquet Airport is the biggest airport in lower Normandy passenger-wise, and offers commuting possibilities to the whole of Europe. Flights are operated by Brit Air and Chal Air Aviation. Most passenger flights are via Lyon while summer flights are direct.

Caen is well linked to the rest of France by motorways to Paris (A13), Brittany (A84) and soon to Le Mans (A28). The city is encircled by the N 814 périphérique which was completed in the late 1990s. The N13 connects Caen to Cherbourg and Caen to Paris. The A13/N814 ring road (périphérique) boasts an impressive viaduct called Le viaduc de Calix which goes over the River Orne and Le Canal de Caen à la mer to permit cargo ships and ferries to dock in Caen's canal harbour. 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 La Compagnie des Tramways Electriques de Caen operated all over Caen. Caen also had several main and branchlines linking Caen 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 the Caen-Rennes subsist with minimal services.

Miscellaneous

Education

Births

Caen was the birthplace of:

Twinnings

Caen is twinned with:


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Préfectures of régions of France
Strasbourg (Alsace) • Bordeaux (Aquitaine) • Clermont-Ferrand (Auvergne) • Dijon (Bourgogne) • Rennes (Bretagne) • Orléans (Centre) • Châlons-en-Champagne (Champagne-Ardenne) • Ajaccio (Corsica) • Besançon (Franche-Comté) • Paris (Île-de-France) • Montpellier (Languedoc-Roussillon) • Limoges (Limousin) • Metz (Lorraine) • Toulouse (Midi-Pyrénées) • Lille (Nord-Pas de Calais) • Caen (Basse-Normandie) • Rouen (Haute-Normandie) • Nantes (Pays-de-la-Loire) • Amiens (Picardie) • Poitiers (Poitou-Charentes) • Marseille (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur) • Lyon (Rhône-Alpes)
Overseas Régions:
Cayenne (French Guiana) • Basse-Terre (Guadeloupe) • Fort-de-France (Martinique) • Saint-Denis (Réunion)

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