France City  -  Strasbourg

 
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Stras- is cognate to the English street from the German equivalence of the word, Straße, while -bourg from the German -burg ("fortress, town") is cognate to the English borough.

Strasbourg is the seat of the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights and it hosts a seat of the European Parliament, together with Brussels.

Strasbourg will serve as the host city for the start (prologue) and Stage 1 of the 2006 Tour de France.

Local Attractions - Places to Visit    

• Sandstone Gothic Cathedral More>>

Strasbourg, Cathedral of Our Lady

• Medieval cityscape of Rhineland
• The Grande Île
• Neo-gothic church Saint-Pierre le Vieux catholique

The Théâtre national de Strasbourg, a typically large and heavy Wilhelmian building

• Palais du Rhin
• Art Nouveau buildings
• Cité de la Musique et de la Danse, the new music school
• Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain

Panorama of Strasbourg from the Barrage Vauban with the Ponts Couverts in the foreground (the fourth tower being hidden by trees at the left) and the cathedral in the distance.

• Hôtel du Département
• Hoenheim-Nord, the tramway-station
• Parc de l'Orangerie

Museums

For its comparatively small size, Strasbourg displays a large quantity and variety of museums.

• The Musée de l'Oeuvre Notre-Dame
• The Musée d'art moderne et contemporain
• The Musée des Beaux-Arts
• The Musée des Arts décoratifs
• The Musée archéologique
• The Musée Alsacien
• The Musée zoologique
• Le Vaisseau (the nave)
• The Musée historique More>>

History    

At the site of Strasbourg, the Romans established a military outpost and named it Argentoratum. It belonged to the Germania Superior Roman province. More>>

Geography    

Strasbourg is situated on the Ill River, where it flows into the Rhine on the frontier with Germany. The German town across the Rhine is Kehl.

Population     

Today, the metropolitan area of Strasbourg reaches 650,000 inhabitants and the eurodistrict 850,000 inhabitants.

Education     

Strasbourg, which was a humanism centre, has a long history of higher-education excellence, melting French and German intellectual traditions. More>>

European Role     

Strasbourg is sometimes regarded as the capital of Europe as a whole and as the "democratic capital" of the European Union. More>>

Transportation     

A modern-looking tram system has operated in Strasbourg since 1994 by the regional transit company Compagnie des Transports Strasbourgeois.

A former tram system, partly following a different route, had been operation since 1878 but was ultimately dismantled in 1960.

Two TGV lines are planned to link Strasbourg to the European high-speed train network:

• TGV Est (Paris-Strasbourg) (under construction, to open 2007)
• TGV Rhin-Rhône (Strasbourg-Lyon) (to open 2011)

Famous People    

Strasbourg was the birthplace of:

• Sebastian Brant (1457-1521), satirical poet and humanist
• Jacob Sturm von Sturmeck (1489-1553) protestant statesman and reformist
• Sebastian Stoskopff (1597-1657), painter of still lives
• Johann Fischart (1546-1590), satirical author
• Albercht Kauw (1621-1681), painter
• François Christophe Kellermann (1735-1820), French marshall
• Philip James de Loutherbourg (1740-1812), painter
• Jean Baptiste Kléber (1753-1800), general
• Ludwig I of Bavaria (1786-1868)
• Gustave Doré (1832-1883), painter
• Charles Friedel (1832-1899), chemist and mineralogist
• Emile Waldteufel (Charles Émile Lévy) (1837-1915), composer
• Paul Émile Appell (1855-1930), mathematician
• Hans (Jean) Arp (1886-1966), artist
• Charles Münch (1891-1968), conductor
• Hans Bethe (1906-2005), physicist, Nobel Prize winner
• Max Bense (1910-1990), philosopher
• Camille Claus (1920-2005), painter
• Marcel Marceau (born 1923), mime
• Tomi Ungerer (born 1931), illustrator and caricaturist
• Herbert Léonard (born 1945), singer
• Arsène Wenger OBE, (born 1949), football manager
• Yann Wehrling, artist and leader of the french Green Party
• Valérien Ismaël (born 1975), football player
• Armando Teixeira (born 1976), football player
• Salomé Haller, soprano
• Mehdi Baala, (born 1978), athlete
• Paul-Henri Mathieu (born 1982), tennis-player

Famous Residents

• Johann Gutenberg (1400-1468), inventor of printing with movable type
• Erasmus (1467-1536), humanist
• Hans Baldung (1484-1545), painter
• Martin Bucer (1491–1551), Reformation leader
• Johannes Sturm (1507-1589), teacher and pedagogue
• John Calvin (1509-1564), Reformation leader
• François-Marie de Broglie (1671-1745), marshall and governor of Strasbourg
• Franz Xaver Richter (1709-1789), composer, eminent member of the "Mannheim school".
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), writer, researcher
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), composer - spent 23 days there in 1778.
• Ignaz Pleyel (1757-1831) served as Kapellmeister at the Cathedral in 1789
• Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle (1760-1836), composer of the Marseillaise
• Klemens Wenzel von Metternich (1773-1859), studied in Strasbourg from 1788 to 1790
• Georg Büchner (1813-1837), writer
• Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges (1830-1889), historian
• Louis Pasteur (1830-1895), scientist
• Lujo Brentano (1844–1931), economist
• Georg Simmel (1858–1918), sociologist
• Hans Pfitzner, (1869-1949) composer
• Jean Jacques Waltz aka. Hansi (1873-1951), artist
• Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), theologian, philosopher, physician and musician
• Maurice Halbwachs, (1877-1945) sociologist
• Otto Klemperer, (1885-1973) conductor
• Marc Bloch (1886-1944), historian and resistant
• Hans Rosbaud (1895-1962), conductor
• Emmanuel Lévinas (1906-1995) philosopher
• Lucie Aubrac (born 1912) and Raymond Aubrac (born 1914), founding members of the Résistance.
• Ernest Bour (1913-2001), conductor
• Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005), philosopher
• Guy Debord (1931-1994), philosopher
• Jean-Marie Lehn (born 1939), Nobel Prize for chemistry 1987
• Bernard-Marie Koltès (1948-1989), playwright
• Barbara Honigmann (born 1949), German writer and painter
• Ségolène Royal (born 1953), leading member of the Parti Socialiste, went to school in Strasbourg.
• Rodolphe Burger (born 1957), musician
• John Howe (born 1957), artist
• Mireille Delunsch (born 1962), soprano

Credits : This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Strasbourg".