Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace région in northeastern France.
With 702,412 inhabitants in 2007, its metropolitan area is the ninth largest in France.
Located close to the border with Germany, it is the préfecture (capital) of the Bas-Rhin département.
Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions such as the Council of Europe with its
European Court of Human Rights, its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and its
European Audiovisual Observatory, the Eurocorps as well as the European Parliament and the
European Ombudsman of the European Union.
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 honor was placed on an entire city centre.
Strasbourg is fused into the Franco-German culture, and has been a bridge of unity between
France and Germany for centuries, especially because of its University and the co-existence of
catholic and protestant culture.
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Strasbourg
STRASBOURG owes both its name - "the
city of the roads" - and its wealth to its position on the
west bank of the Rhine, long one of the great natural transport
arteries of Europe. The city's medieval commercial pre-eminence
was damaged by too close an involvement in the religious struggles
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but recovered with
the city's absorption into France in 1681. Along with the rest
of Alsace, Strasbourg suffered annexation by Germany from 1871 to the end of World
War I and again from 1940 to 1944.
Today old animosities have
been submerged in the togetherness of the European Union, of
which, as the seat of the Council of Europe, the European Court
of Human Rights and the European Parliament, Strasbourg is one
of the capitals. Prosperous, beautiful and modern, with an orderliness
that is Germanic rather than Latin, the city is big enough -
with a population of over a quarter of a million people - to
have a metropolitan air without being overwhelming. It has one
of the loveliest cathedrals in France and one of the oldest and
most active universities: this is the one city in eastern France that is definitely worth a special
detour .
It isn't difficult to find
your way around Strasbourg on foot, as the city centre is concentrated
on a small island encircled by the River Ill . The tourist office
can provide a map , but be warned - several of the street names
are not marked. However, it's a nice town to lose yourself in.
Visible throughout the
city is the magnificent filigree spire of the pink cathedral
that dominates not just the city but most of Alsace; it is to
the south of this building that you'll find the cream of the
museums. To the north of here, place Kléber is the heart
of the commercial district, and, to the west, place Gutenberg
is nominally the main square. About a fifteen-minute walk west
on the tip of the island is Petite France , where timber-framed
houses and gently flowing canals hark back to the city's medieval
trades of tanning and dyeing.
OTHER POPULAR DESTINATIONS IN FRANCE