Nancy

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Nancy (pronounced in French) (German: Nanzig) is a city and commune which is the préfecture (capital) of the Meurthe-et-Moselle département, in the Lorraine région of northeastern France. The metropolitan area (aire urbaine) of Nancy had a population of 410,508 inhabitants at the 1999 census, 103,605 of whom lived in the city of Nancy proper (105,100 inhabitants in the city proper as of 2004 estimates).

History

The earliest signs of human settlement in the area date back to 800 B.C. Early settlers were likely attracted by easily mined iron ore and a ford in the Meurthe river. A small fortified town named Nanciacum was built by Duke Gérard around 1050. It was sacked by Emperor Frédéric II, then rebuilt in stone over the next few centuries as it grew in importance as the capital of the duchy of Lorraine. In 1766, with the death of Duke Stanislas the duchy became a French province and Nancy remained its capital. When the région of Lorraine was created in the middle of the 20th century, Metz was chosen as its capital instead of Nancy.

Geography

The neighboring communes of Nancy are: Jarville-la-Malgrange, Laxou, Malzéville, Maxéville, Saint-Max, Tomblaine, Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, Villers-lès-Nancy.

Sights

The Place Stanislas named after the Polish king and duke of Lorraine Stanislaw Leszczynski, Place de la Carrière, and Place d'Alliance were added on the World Heritage Sites list by the UNESCO in 1983.

The "École de Nancy", a group of artists and architects founded by the glassmaster and furniture maker Émile Gallé, worked in the Art Nouveau style at the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century. It was principally their work which made Nancy a centre of art and architecture that rivaled Paris and helped give the city the nickname "Capital de l'Est." The city still possesses many Art Nouveau buildings (mostly banks or private homes). Furniture, glassware, and other pieces of the decorative arts are conserved at the Musée de l'École de Nancy, which is housed in the 1909 villa of Eugène Corbin, a Nancy businessman and supporter of the Art Nouveau there.

The old city centre's heritage dates from the Middle Ages to the 18th century.

Cathedral:^*]

Culture

At the turn of the 20th century, Nancy was a major centre of the Art Nouveau style.

Transport

Nancy is served by a 'tramway on tyres', in actual fact a guided busway based on Bombardier Transportation's Guided Light Transit technology. It has suffered many incidents and malfunctions, but now works without significant problems. This system is also used in Caen, and will be built in the city of Nijmegen.

Miscellaneous

The N ray, which turned out to be a figment of local physicist René-Prosper Blondlot's imagination, was named for Nancy.

Nancy's archaic German name is Nanzig, although that name can still be found in the Luxembourgish adaptation Nantzeg.

Colleges and universities

Births

Nancy was the birthplace of:

Christina, Grand Duchess of Tuscany (1565-1637)
Jacques Callot (c.1592-1635), baroque graphics artist, draftsman and printmaker
Louis Maimbourg (1610-1686), Jesuit and historian
Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor (1708-1765), duke of Lorraine and later Holy Roman Emperor
Jean François de Saint-Lambert (1716-1803), poet
Joseph Ducreux (1735-1802), portrait painter, pastelist, miniaturist, and engraver
Antoine Drouot (1774-1847), one of Napoleon's generals
Edmond de Goncourt (1822-1896), author, critic, publisher, founder of the Académie Goncourt
Marie Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville (1827-1910), historian and philologist
Émile Gallé (1846-1904), Art Nouveau artist
René-Prosper Blondlot (1849-1930), physicist, best remembered for his mistaken identification of N rays
Henri Poincaré (1854-1912), mathematician, theoretical scientist and philosopher of science
Louis Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey (1854-1934), marshal of France
Henri Cartan (b. 1904), mathematician
Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1995), noted as the inventor of musique concrète
François Jacob (b. 1920), biologist
Pascal Dusapin (b. 1955), composer

Hometown of These Fictional Character

René François Artois ('Allo 'Allo)
René Artois ('Alllo 'Allo brother of René François Artois)

Twinned towns

Newcastle, England (since 1954)

Liège, Belgium (since 1954)

Karlsruhe, Germany (since 1955)

Padua, Italy (since 1964)

Kanazawa, Japan (since 1973)

Qiryat Shemona, Israel (since 1984)

Lublin, Poland (since 1988) Cincinnati, United States (since 1991)

External links

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