, Paris)]]
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 hammering it took during the
Battle Of Normandy in
1944 .
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.
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 prevents the canal from withstanding the effects of the tide and permits large ships to navigate up the canal to Caen's freshwater harbours.
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. (See
Timeline of Caen Castle )
In repentance for marrying his cousin Mathilda of Flanders, William also ordered two
Abbey s to be built:
- Saint-Pierre church.
- 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".
- Saint Étienne abbey-church, where a slab marks the place of the tomb of William The Conqueror , though his bones were scattered by Huguenot s 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.
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.
Caen has one of the first type and controversial
Tram way on tyres - in actual fact a
Guided Bus way based on
Bombardier Transportation 's
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 formely 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 to have docked were the ''
Quiberon '' and the ''
Duc De Normandie ''.
Although a fraction of what it used to be remains, Caen had once boasted an extensive rail and tram network. Until 1936 La Compagnie des Tramways Electriques de Caen operated all over Caen from 1895. 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 a minimal services.
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
- Tanneguy Lefebvre ( 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
- François Henri Turpin ( 1709 - 1799 ), man of letters
- Jean De Crèvecoeur ( 1735 – 1813 ), French-American writer
- Jean-Jacques Boisard ( 1744 – 1833 ), Writer who specialized in Fable s
- Gervais Delarue ( 1751 - 1835 ), historical investigator
- 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
- 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
- Jordy (born 1988 ) Singer
Caen is twinned with:
