Dijon, France

 

Dijon is a French commune, prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and capital of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region. It is located between the Paris basin and the Rhône basin, on the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean axis, 310 kilometers south-east of Paris and 190 kilometers north of Lyon.

Its inhabitants, called the Dijonnais, numbered 156,920 in 2017. The urban unit, which for its part had 245,875 inhabitants, is the first agglomeration of the region in terms of number of inhabitants. The city is at the center of an intercommunality, Dijon Métropole, comprising 23 municipalities and 253,638 inhabitants and an urban area of ​​387,382 inhabitants.

Historical capital of the Duchy of Burgundy, city of a hundred spiers under the Ancien Régime, heir to a rich historical and architectural heritage, Dijon is a tourist city whose appeal is reinforced by the gastronomic reputation of the region. The historic center of the city is the second component of the climates of the Burgundy vineyards, registered since July 4, 2015 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

City of congresses, the Burgundian capital is also a green city with an important tertiary sector, as well as a regional economic center with a diversified fabric, with a traditional agrifood center (Dijon mustard, Dijon and kir crème de cassis, gingerbread , Lanvin chocolate, etc.) and a renowned pharmaceutical sector.

 

Sights

The former ducal palace on the semi-circular, colonnaded Place de la Liberation is still the center of the city, dates from the late 17th century and now houses the town hall in the west wing. The 46 meter high Tour Philippe-le-Bon dates back to the 15th century. In the district around the Ducal Palace there are beautiful patrician houses (hotels) from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. More than 70 of them are listed as a historic monument of the Base Mérimée.

The Palais de Justice dates from the 15th and 16th centuries and was originally the seat of the Burgundy Court of Justice. The Gothic Cathedral of Dijon was built from 1271 to 1325 after the previous building from the 11th century collapsed; its remains can be seen in the crypt where Saint Benignus of Dijon, one of the great missionaries of Burgundy, is buried. An archaeological museum is housed in the preserved monastery buildings. The Notre-Dame church was built between 1220 and 1250 in the Burgundian Gothic style. The late Gothic Saint-Michel church was built between 1499 and 1525 and is the largest parish church in Dijon; it contains numerous works of art. The monastery church of the Saint Bernard Sisters is a magnificent Italian baroque building and houses a museum of sacred art. Folklore exhibits are on display in the former convent buildings. Only remains of the Chartreuse de Champmol, built as the dukes' burial place, remain; The sculptures of the Moses fountain and the chapel portal decorated with statues by Claus Sluter from the 15th century have been preserved. The figures of prophets and mourning angels were seminal for the development of Burgundy sculpture. The 19th-century synagogue was saved from destruction by Félix Kir. Opened in 1880, Jardin Darcy is the city's oldest public park.

The Château de Pouilly on the outskirts of the city was the Bouhier family's country estate.

Museums
Dijon is home to renowned museums that showcase important regional collections. They are all housed in cultural monuments.
The Art Museum is one of the oldest museums in France. It houses works of art from ancient Egypt to the 20th century and is housed in the former palace of the Dukes of Burgundy.
The archaeological museum is housed in the remains of the collegiate church of St. Benigne. Finds from Roman times and the Middle Ages are presented here. The head of Christ from the cross planned for the Moses fountain by Claus Sluter from the Chartreuse de Champmol is also on display here.
The Musée de la vie bourguignonne Perrin de Puycousin is located in the cloister of the Monastère des Bernardines. It presents a collection of everyday life in Burgundy, rural and urban, from the 18th to the early 20th centuries.
The Musée d'art sacré de Dijon is also located within the walls of the Monastère des Bernardines. It displays a collection of liturgical objects. The highlight is the sculpture "The Visitation" from the ruined monastery of the same name.
The Musée Magnin displays an impressive collection of paintings and furniture collected by Maurice Magnin and his wife Jeanne. It is housed in the former Hôtel Lantin, a 17th-century Hôtel Particulier, rue des Bons Enfants.
The Musée Rude is located in the transept of the profaned Saint-Étienne church. It houses various casts of busts and statues by the sculptor François Rude.
The buildings of the Natural History Museum - Planetarium - Garden of Science are part of the collections of the Arquebuse Botanical Garden.
Le Consortium is a contemporary art museum with an extensive collection. It regularly holds temporary exhibitions.
Until 2006 there was still the mustard museum Musée de la moutarde de Dijon (Musée Amora), which was located on the Amora site.

 

Getting here

By car
Dijon is served by highways:
from Paris by the A6 then the A38;
from Lyon or Metz / Nancy by the A31;
from Besançon by the A39.

 

By train
Dijon is well served by the TGV; it only takes 1 hour 40 minutes to come from Paris (Gare de Lyon). Travel times will be shortened in the years to come. If you want to travel economically, take the normal train (TER, Corail), but it will take 3 hours. In addition, the station is very well served by trains from provincial towns: it takes 2 hours 15 minutes to come from Nancy, 1 hour 40 minutes from Lyon, 1 hour from Besançon.

On a boat
Dijon Marina - Boats can arrive in Dijon via the Burgundy Canal: the city has a marina. This is the old commercial port, inaugurated in 1832.

By plane
Dijon-Bourgogne Airport - The medium-sized Dijon Bourgogne airport is no longer served by regular lines.

The nearest operational airport is Dole Jura.

 

Geography

Dijon is on the western edge of the Saône plain and at the foot of the northern foothills of the Côte d'Or; The Ouche and the Suzon flow through the city, it lies on the Canal de Bourgogne, which connects the city with the Saône and the Yonne.

 

History

antiquity
The earliest finds in the area of today's city of Dijon date from the Hallstatt period, an epoch of the Iron Age. In Gallo-Roman times there was only one relatively insignificant place called Divio (variants: Diviodunum, Dibio, Castrum divionense). It lay on the border of the Lingones and Aedui civitates and belonged to the province of Gallia Belgica. The missionary Benignus von Dijon, who according to Christian tradition had worked in Dijon for a long time, is said to have been martyred here in the 2nd or 3rd century.

Literally, the place is attested only by early medieval authors. Gregory of Tours reports that Aurelian fortified the place. The Roman emperor probably took this step around 273 AD because of ongoing Germanic invasions. According to Gregor, the fortified settlement, which had a circumference of about 1200 m, was located north of the Ouche and was flowed through by the Suzon, with the water power of which was used to operate mills. Not far west of the village were fertile vineyards. The Via Agrippa, a Roman road leading from Lyon (Latin/Celtic Lugdunum) to Trier (Latin Augusta Treverorum), also ran nearby.

middle Ages
In the 470s, Dijon came under the rule of the Burgundians. In 500 AD, the Franks under Clovis I defeated the Burgundians under Gundobad at the Battle of Dijon. The mighty Saint-Bénigne Abbey was founded here in 525. In 737 Dijon was cremated by the Saracens and in 888 by the Normans.

In the 9th century, during the Carolingian period, Dijon came under the rule of the Bishops of Langres, from whom the Counts of Dijon had fiefs. After the last of these counts died in 1007, the city came into the possession of King Robert II the Pious by purchase in 1016, who incorporated it into the Duchy of Burgundy and made it its metropolis. In 1032 Dijon came with Burgundy as an appanage to the princes of the Capetian dynasty. Three church assemblies (Concilia Divonensia) were held in Dijon, in 1077, 1116 and 1199.

On June 28, 1137, a fire destroyed the city, which was rebuilt under Duke Hugo II. Duke Hugo III. gave Dijon its city rights in 1187 and the suburb of Saint-Bénigne was walled and incorporated. The Charité hospital was also founded at this time. The importance of Dijon increased in the 12th century due to the granting of city rights and the holding of a large fair.

After Philip I of Burgundy died in 1361, the French King John II the Good handed over the Duchy of Burgundy, with Dijon as its capital, to his son, Philip the Bold, in 1364. In 1377 he acquired some land outside the city gates and in 1384 built the Chartreuse de Champmol, a Carthusian monastery and future burial place of the Dukes of Burgundy.

Unlike the other parts of his empire, Philip the Bold administered Burgundy himself and established a permanent council to assist him in this government activity, which met in Dijon. The city was also the place of the temporary meeting of a 1386 founded, u. a. Assembly of estates consisting of delegates from the nobility and the larger cities, which could only be convened by the duke. Dijon flourished culturally under Philip the Bold and his successors, all of the House of Valois, who ruled Burgundy from 1364 to 1477. It was a residence of these dukes, whose glittering court attracted musicians and artists.

After the death of Charles the Bold in January 1477, the French King Louis XI. occupy Burgundy. In June 1477 a spontaneous uprising broke out in Dijon, which spread across the country but was quickly subdued by Charles d'Amboise, who was appointed governor of Burgundy. Louis XI established the parliament for Burgundy in Dijon and personally visited the city on July 31, 1479, where he received the oath of fealty from his new subjects in the Saint-Bénigne church and confirmed the privileges of Dijon.

Modern times
Dijon was attacked by 20,000 Swiss and Germans in 1513 (Dijon campaign). The French governor Louis II de La Trémoille had to capitulate after a few days, largely fulfill the federal demands and promise a high war indemnity, whereupon the siege army withdrew again. In the Huguenot wars, the city was always on the side of the Catholics, but was spared the massacres that followed St. Bartholomew's Night (1572). She submitted to King Henry IV in 1595.

The rise to a large city began in the 17th and 18th centuries. Dijon was a prosperous city, especially in the 18th century. In 1722 the university was founded in Dijon and in 1731 the diocese of Dijon was established. In 1740 the Burgundian Parliament established the Academy of Sciences, Arts and Literature. A botanical garden and a natural history museum were also set up at this time.

On July 18, 1766, on the occasion of a visit by the governor, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – he was ten years old at the time – made a guest appearance in the city with his father and sister. They gave a concert together.

Dijon experienced a temporary decline after the outbreak of the French Revolution (1789). But the city grew again in the 19th century. The demolition of the old fortifications became necessary. In 1833 the Canal de Bourgogne was completed. In 1851 the first railway connections to Dijon were laid, when the later Emperor Napoleon III. opened the connection to the Paris–Marseille railway line. This brought the city to renewed prosperity. In 1899 she was admitted to the Legion of Honor (Légion d'honneur), which resulted in a change in the city's coat of arms.

During the Franco-Prussian War, on October 30, 1870 near Dijon, a battle took place between the Baden division belonging to Werder's corps and advanced parts of the army from Lyon. After putting up stubborn resistance for several hours on October 31, the city itself capitulated and General Werder established his headquarters there. As the French Army of the East under Bourbaki approached towards the end of December 1870, Dijon was evacuated by the Germans on December 27 and occupied by Garibaldi the following day. On January 21 and 23, 1871, fighting took place in the Dijon area between Garibaldi's troops and detached detachments of the 2nd German Army Corps, through which Garibaldi and his corps were held near Dijon, while General von Manteuffel cut off Bourbaki's army's lines of retreat . When General Hann von Weyhern arrived at the end of January, Garibaldi had to evacuate the city on the night of January 31, after which the Germans moved back in on February 1. On February 10, 1871, Manteuffel moved his headquarters to Dijon.

In 1940 the city was bombed and occupied by the German Wehrmacht. Three of the planes that were supposed to bomb Dijon got lost and mistakenly bombed Freiburg im Breisgau. On September 11, 1944, the city was liberated again.

In 1964, just outside the city to the west, the Lac Chanoine Kir reservoir was created, which is named after the then mayor and is now an important local recreation area. In 1981 it was connected to the TGV network of the French railways.

 

Coat of arms

Blazon: "Red with a split shield head, in front within a silver-red border, blue sprinkled with golden heraldic lilies, in the back within a red border divided five times diagonally to the right by gold and blue."

Coat of arms history: Until 1391 the coat of arms of the city was Ledig red in an old French triangular shield. In the same year, today's coat of arms with the colors of the Duke of Burgundy, Philip II the Bold, was introduced in the shield head.

During the reign of Napoléon Bonaparte, the city's coat of arms changed as a city of the first order (Napoleonic heraldry):

"Below a red shield head, in it three golden bees, divided, in front within a silver-red border in blue a golden vine with four leaves and two vines, behind within a red border divided five times diagonally right by gold and blue." in French coat of arms (18th and 19th centuries).

After that, the city again had its current coat of arms, which was expanded in 1899 to include the cross of the Order of the Legion of Honor hanging from the shield head without a ribbon. In 1962 the cross was placed under the shield as an order. i.e. it only appears in the large city coat of arms with the magnificent pieces, the coat of arms itself has its old form from 1391.

 

Business

The city's economy is highly diversified. In addition to the food industry, metal processing, the chemical industry and the pharmaceutical industry are also important.

In 2012, only three medium-sized companies remained from the formerly flourishing production of Dijon mustard with over 40 companies. The last major manufacturer, Amora, has meanwhile been bought by a group, which in turn moved its development laboratory to Dijon in 2005. Mustard seed production has migrated from Burgundy to Canada, where production is much cheaper; so there z. B. sown by plane.

Only flour mills remain of the former food processing plants. But there are also new companies, for example Nestlé has put a large chocolate bar factory into operation.

The wine trade for the whole region runs more quietly here, production and handling take place in the nearby wineries and bottling plants on the Côte d'Or. In 2022, the headquarters of the International Organization of Vine and Wine was moved from Paris to Dijon. The future headquarters, Hotel Bouchu d'Esterno, is currently being renovated and will only accommodate the OIV at the end of 2024. The OIV will be located in the Cité Internationale de la gastronomie et du vin until the construction work is completed.

The chemical industry is focused on plastics processing, the smaller manufacturing companies cannot grow due to the very cramped conditions within the city and cannot finance the move to a new environment, partly because the requirements of environmental protection and occupational safety have increased enormously.

The largest company in the pharmaceutical industry was recently taken over by a group and is now beginning to adapt to the new circumstances with significant changes.

The mayor has succeeded in forming an economic region with the surrounding communities in which, among other things, Japanese suppliers to the automotive industry could settle.