Bordeaux

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Bordeaux

Bordèu in Gascon) is a port city in the south-west of France, with 925,253 inhabitants in the metropolitan area at the 1999 census. It is the capital of the Aquitaine région, as well as the préfecture (administrative capital) of the Gironde département. Its inhabitants are called Bordelais.

Bordeaux wine draws its name from the city around which it has been produced since the 8th century. Thus the city is known as the world's wine capital, hosting the wine industry's biggest event: Vinexpo.

Bordeaux is the centre of much military, space and aeronautics research and construction.

With almost 100,000 students, the city's university is renowned for its research units in crop science, new materials and nanotechnology.

Geography

Bordeaux is located near the European Atlantic coast, in the south west of France and in the north of the Aquitaine region. The city is built on an arch of the river Garonne, and is thus divided into two parts: the right bank to the East and left bank in the West. Historically, the left bank is the most developed of the three. In Bordeaux, the Garonne River is accessible to the ocean liners.

Demographics

At the 1999 census, there were 215,363 inhabitants in the city (commune) of Bordeaux. There were 925,253 inhabitants in the metropolitan area (aire urbaine). The city contains a diverse range of people. Much of the population is French, but there are sizable groups of Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Germans and North African Muslims. The metropolis has developed rapidly over the last decades and is facing urban sprawl.

As of February 2004 estimates, the population of the city reached 229,500 inhabitants.

History

For the ecclesiastcial history, see Archbishopric of Bordeaux

Bordeaux was founded around 300 BC by a Celtic tribe, the Biturige Vivisci, who named the town Burdigala. The city fell under Roman rule around 60 BC.

The city was plundered by the troops of Abd er Rahman in 732, after he had defeated Duke Eudes and before he was killed during the Battle of Tours on October 10. It was later plundered by the Vikings.

From the 12th to the 15th century, Bordeaux was part of the English realm, following the marriage of Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine with the French-speaking Count Henri Plantagenet, born in Le Mans, who became, within months of their wedding, King Henry II of England. The 18th century was its golden age, because of the wine trade with the British Isles and Germany and the trades with the West Indies. Many downtown buildings (about 5,000), including those on the quays are from this period. Victor Hugo found the town so beautiful he once said: " take Versailles, add Antwerp, and you have Bordeaux". Baron Haussmann, a long time prefect of Bordeaux, used Bordeaux' 18th century big scale rebuilding as a model when he was asked by Emperor Napoleon III to transform a then still quasi-medieval Paris into a "modern" capital that would make France proud.

The French government withdrew to the city during the wars of 1870, World War I and World War II.

Economy

Wine

Main article : Bordeaux wine

Bordeaux is the largest wine region in the world with about 117 000 hectares of vineyards, 57 appellations, 9,000 wine-producing châteaux, 13,000 wine growers, 400 traders and sales of 14,5 billion euros annually. With an annual production of over 700 million bottles, Bordeaux produces large quantities of everyday wine as well as very expensive wines.

Because of the wine glut (wine lake), the price squeeze caused by increasingly strong international competition, and vine pull schemes, the number of growers has recently dropped from 14,000 and the area under vine has also decreased significantly.

Both red and white wines are made in Bordeaux. Red Bordeaux is called claret in the United Kingdom.

Red Bordeaux is generally made from a blend of grapes and may be made from Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Malbec, and, less commonly in recent years, Carmenere. White Bordeaux is made from Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, and Muscadelle.

The Bordeaux wine region is divided into subregions including Saint-Émilion, Pomerol, Médoc, and Graves. The area's five 'premier cru' (first growth) red wines (four from Médoc and one, Chateau Haut-Brion, from Graves), established by the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855 are among the most expensive wines in the world: The first growths are:

Sauternes is a subregion of Graves known for its intensely sweet, white, dessert wines such as Chateau d'Yquem.

Laser

The Laser Megajoule will be the most powerful laser in the world, allowing fundamental research and the development of the lasers and plasmas technologies. This project, carried by the French Ministery of Defence, involves an investment of 2 billion euros. In 2009, the 600 experiments programmed each year with the Laser Mégajoule will begin. The "Road of the lasers", a major project of regional planning for the optical and lasers industries, will be born. Therefore, the area of Bordeaux will shelter the most important concentration of optical and laser experts in Europe.

Aeronautics

20 000 people work for the aeronautic industry in Bordeaux. The city has some of the biggest companies including Dassault, Sogerma, SNECMA, Thales, SNPE, and others. The Dassault Falcon private jets are built there as well as the military aircraft Rafale and Mirage 2000, the A380 cockpit, the boosters of Ariane 5, and the M51 SLBM missile.

Tourism

Tourism is a fast growing industry in Bordeaux. The city and the beautiful Aquitaine region surrounding it hope to attract more and more visitors in the coming years. Bordeaux attracts 3 million visitors each year.

List of major companies settled in Bordeaux

Dassault
EADS composites
EADS Sogerma
EADS Space Transportation
SNECMA
SNPE
Thales Group
LU
Marie Brizard
Ricard
William Pitters
Ford
Solectron
LECTRA
SMURFIT
Sanofi Aventis
McKesson
Arena (swimwear)
Oxbow (sportswear)
In-Fusio
CDiscount

Education

University

The university was created by the archbishop Pey Berland and was removed under the French revolution in 1793, before reappearing in 1808 with Napoleon Ier. Bordeaux accommodates approximately 70 000 students on one of the largest campuses of Europe (235 ha). The University of Bordeaux is divided into four:

The University Bordeaux 1 (Sciences and Technologies), 10693 students in 2002.
The University Bordeaux 2 (Medecine), 15038 students in 2002.
The University Bordeaux 3 (Liberal Arts, Humanities, Languages and Social sciences), 14785 students in 2002.
The University Bordeaux 4 (Law, Economy and Management), 12556 students in 2002.

Schools

Bordeaux has numerous public and private schools offering undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

Engineering schools :

École nationale supérieure d'arts et métiers
École d'ingénieurs en modélisation mathématique et mécanique
École nationale supérieure d'électronique, informatique, radiocommunications de Bordeaux
École supérieure de technologie des biomolécules de Bordeaux
École nationale d'ingénieurs des travaux agricoles de Bordeaux
École nationale supérieure de chimie et physique de Bordeaux
Institut des sciences et techniques des aliments de Bordeaux
Institut de cognitique
École supérieure d'informatique
École privée des sciences informatiques

Business and management schools :

Bordeaux école de management (Bordeaux Management school)
EBP International
Institut des hautes études économiques et commerciales
École de commerce européenne

Other :

Institut d'études politiques de Bordeaux (Institute of political sciences)
École nationale de la magistrature (National school for Magistrate)
École du service de santé des armées
École d'architecture et de paysage de Bordeaux
École des beaux-arts de Bordeaux
École française des attachés de presse et des professionels de la communication (EFAP)
Conservatoire national des arts et métiers d'Aquitaine (CNAM)

Culture

Bordeaux is classified "City of Art and History". The city is candidate for being included in the UNESCO world heritage list.

An architectural jewel

Bordeaux is home to one of Europe's biggest 18th century architectural urban areas, making it a sought-after destination for tourists and cinema production crews. It stands out as one of the first French cities, after Nancy, to have entered an era of urbanism and metropolitan big scale projects, with the team Gabriel father and son, architects for King Louis XV, under the supervision of 2 intendants (Governors), first Mr. Dupre de Saint Maur then the Marquis (Marquess) de Tourny.

List of Landmarks and Monuments :

Esplanade des Quinconces
Colonnes des Girondins
Grand Théâtre
Allées de Tourny
Cours de l'Intendance
Place du Chapelet
Pont de Pierre
Cathédrale Saint-André (Exterior: ^*)
Tour Pey-Berland
Eglise Sainte-Croix (Exterior: ^*)
Basilique Saint-Michel (Entrance: ^*)
Palais Rohan (Exterior: ^*)
Palais Gallien
Porte Cailhau
La Grosse Cloche
Eglise Saint-Eloi
Place de la Bourse
Place du Parlement
Place Saint-Pierre
Rue Sainte-Catherine

Museums

Musée des Beaux Arts
Musée d'Aquitaine
Musée des Arts Décoratifs
Musée D'Histoire Naturelle
CAPC
Musée National des Doines
French Cruiser Colbert
Vinorama
Musée Goupil
Casa de Goya
Cap Sciences
Centre Jean Moulin

It is also the first city in France to have created, in the 1980s, an architecture exhibition and research center, Arc en rêve, still the most prestigious in France besides Paris IFA.

Cinema, Theatre and Music

Bordeaux offers a large number of cinemas, theatres and is the home of the National Opera of Bordeaux. There are many music venues of varying capacity. The city also offers festivals throughout the year : Novart, Mira, Wine festival...

Media

Sud Ouest is the regional daily newspaper.
TV7 is the local TV channel.
Wit FM, Sauvagine and Blackbox are local radio stations.

Transportation

Road

Bordeaux is an important road and motorway junction. The city is connected to Paris with the A10 motorway, with Lyon with the A89, with Toulouse with the A62, and with Spain with the A63. There is a ring motorway called "Rocade" which is often saturated. The project of another ring road is being discussed.

Bordeaux has 4 road bridges that cross the Garonne, the Pont-de-Pierre build in the 1820s and 3 modern bridges built after 1960: the Pont Saint Jean, just south of the Pont de Pierre (both located downtown), the Pont d'Aquitaine, a suspended bridge downstream from downtown, and the Pont François Mitterrand, located upstream of downtown. These 2 bridges are part of the ring road around Bordeaux. There is also a steel railway bridge, built in the 1850s by Gustave Eiffel, and used daily by 100s, including the high speed trains TGVs.

Rail

The main railway station, the Gare St-Jean near the centre of the city, welcomes 4 million passengers a year. It is served by the French national (SNCF) railway's high speed train, the TGV, that allows a trip to Paris in 3 hours, offering connections with major European centres such as Lille, Brussels, Amsterdam, Cologne, Geneva and London. The TGV also serves Toulouse and Irun from Bordeaux. Regular train service is provided to Nantes, Nice, Marseille and Lyon. The Gare St-Jean is the major hub for regional trains (TER) operated by the SNCF to Arcachon, Limoges, Agen, Périgueux, Pau and Bayonne.

Airport

Bordeaux is served by an international airport, Aéroport de Bordeaux Mérignac, located 8km from downtown in the suburban city of Mérignac.

Port

The port lies on the Atlantic ocean and the Gironde estuary. Almost 9 million tons of goods arrive and leave each year.

Public Transport

Bordeaux has an important public transport system called TBC. This company is run by the Connex group. The network is composed of:

3 tram lines (A, B and C).
75 bus routes, all connected to the tramway network (from 1 to 96).
12 night bus routes (from S1 to S12).
An electric bus shuttle in the city centre.
A boat shuttle on the Garonne river.

This network is operated from 5am to 1am.

There have been several plans for a subway network to be set up but they were given up for both geological and financial reasons. The tramway system was started in the fall of 2000 and put into service in December 2003, connecting Bordeaux with the suburban areas. It uses the APS technology, a brand new and exclusive cableless technology developed by French company Alstom and designed to preserve the aesthetic environment the tramway is surrounded by (although very controversial for its considerable cost of installation and maintenance, but also for the numerous technical problems that paralyzed the network for an unusually long time even if those problems have been resolved). At the same time many downtown streets and squares along the tramway lines became pedestrian areas, with limited access by cars.

Sports

The Stade Chaban-Delmas is the largest stadium. It can host 35000 spectators. The are two major sport teams in Bordeaux :

Girondins de Bordeaux is the football team. It is part of the Ligue 1 in the French football championship.
The Stade Bordelais team is part of the Second League in the French rugby league championship.
Bordeaux is the home of one of the strongest cricket teams in France, "Bordeaux-La Brède".

Miscellaneous

Births

Bordeaux was the birthplace of:

Decimus Magnus Ausonius (c. 310-395), Roman poet and rhetorician
Bertrand Andrieu (1761-1822), engraver
Jean Anouilh (1910-1987), dramatist
Yvonne Arnaud (1892-1958), actress
François Bigot (1703-1788), last Intendant of New France
René Clément (1913-1996), actor, director, writer
Damia (1899-1978), singer
Lili Damita (1901-1994), actress
Danielle Darrieux (born 1917), actress
Eugène Goossens (1867-1958) conductor, violinist
François Mauriac (1885-1970), writer, Nobel laureate
Édouard Molinaro (born 1928), film director, producer
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), philosopher
St. Paulinus of Nola (354-431), educator, religious figure
Pierre Rode (1774-1830), violinist
Jean-Jacques Sempé (born 1932), cartoonist
Richard II of England 1367- 1400
Jacques Ellul (1912–1994), sociologist, theologian, Christian anarchist
Georges Antoine Pons Rayet (1839–1906), astronomer, discoverer of the Wolf-Rayet stars, founder of the Bordeaux Observatory

Twinnings and partnerships

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