Nancy is a French commune located in Lorraine on the banks of the
Meurthe a few kilometers upstream from its point of confluence with
the Moselle, a tributary of the Rhine, 281 km east of Paris and 116
km west of Strasbourg . It is the prefecture of the
Meurthe-et-Moselle department, in the Grand Est region. Its
inhabitants are called the Nancéiens.
Capital of the Duchy of
Lorraine until its attachment to the Kingdom of France in 1766,
bishopric since 1777, Nancy is the capital of the department of
Meurthe from 1790 to 1871 then of Meurthe-et-Moselle from 1871 It is
also famous for its Place Stanislas, named after the last Duke of
Lorraine, which is part of an 18th century complex classified as a
UNESCO World Heritage Site. It also has many buildings classified as
historical monuments and it is one of the European centers of Art
Nouveau thanks to the School of Nancy.
The intramural
population amounted to 104,072 inhabitants on January 1, 2013,
making Nancy the second most populous municipality in Lorraine after
Metz. With 435,356 inhabitants in 2016, the urban area of Nancy is
the most populous in Lorraine, the second in the Grand Est after
that of Strasbourg and the twentieth in France. Nancy is also one of
the main university towns and the agglomeration is home to one of
the main health centers in France.
architecture and urban design
early modern period with the
former ducal palace and the neo-Gothic Saint-Epvre church. The new
town to the south has its center around Place Stanislas, named after
the former Polish king Stanislaus I Leszczyński, who died in 1737
after being defeated in the War of Polish Succession by his
son-in-law Louis XV. was settled with the Duchy of Lorraine and Bar.
The Stanislas, de la Carrière and d'Alliance squares, one of the
most important ensembles of enlightened absolutist urban planning,
were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1983. The squares
were mainly laid out between 1752 and 1760 by the architect Emmanuel
Héré. The Place Stanislas, formerly Place Royale, follows the type
of French royal squares with uniformly designed facades around a
central image of the ruler. The monument was once King Louis XV. of
France, after Stanislas' death also the ruler of Lorraine. Today's
monument from the 19th century shows Stanislas himself. The entire
south side of the square is occupied by the town hall (Hôtel de
Ville), in whose staircase and hall a pictorial program praises
Stanislas' blessed reign. Two palatial pavilions to the east and
west housed court, administrative and educational facilities. Today
the Musée des Beaux-Arts is located in the north-west and the opera
house in the north-east. On the north side, where the fortifications
used to separate the old and new town, single-storey buildings, the
basses faces, frame the square. The square appears as the center of
the entire urban space through the large street axis that leads from
Porte Sainte-Cathérine in the east to Porte Saint-Stanislas in the
west, both of which are distinguished by small triumphal gates. The
framing buildings of Place Stanislas are loosely linked by rich
decorative lattices by Jean Lamour. They also have ornamental
fountains by Barthélemy Guibal in the north-west and north-east
corners.
A triumphal arch, built in 1757 in honor of Louis
XV, forms the passageway to the Place de la Carrière. was built. The
elongated former tournament ground is lined on both sides with a
uniform development of houses, formerly for functionaries of the
court and the state. The sequence of squares is completed in the
north by the transverse Place de l'Hémicycle in front of the former
seat of the French governor.
In the city center and in the
western suburbs and villa areas of Nancy there are also numerous Art
Nouveau buildings from the École de Nancy.
Other sights:
Palais des Ducs de Lorraine (Palace of the Dukes of Lorraine), today
the Musée Lorrain d'Art et d'Histoire
Église des Cordeliers,
burial church of the Dukes of Lorraine, today also part of the Musée
Lorrain
Pépinière, park in the English style of the "Ferme
Ornée". A small zoo, a shell stage, places of entertainment for
children and restaurants are integrated into the park.
Musée de
l'École de Nancy, Museum of Art Nouveau in Lorraine
18th century
Baroque cathedral with great organ, built in 1763 by Nicolas Dupont
and restored in 1861 by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll.
Église
Saint-Sébastien, Lorraine Baroque, built 1720–1731 by the architect
Jean-Nicolas Jennesson (1686–1755)
Église St-Léon IX, neo-Gothic
parish church, built 1860-1877 as part of the city expansion west of
the station
Musée des Beaux-Arts, paintings from the last 400
years with images by Caravaggio, Rubens, Manet, Modigliani
NASIUM
- La cité des Leuques - an old Roman town of 120 ha
synagogue
Brasserie Excelsior, Art Nouveau restaurant, opened in 1911, with
stained glass by Jacques Gruber
Sports
The most successful
sports club in the city is the football club AS Nancy, which plays
in the third highest French league (national). He plays his home
games at the Stade Marcel-Picot.
In addition to football, the
basketball team SLUC Nancy Basket plays an important role. She was
French champion in 2008 and 2011. The handball team Grand Nancy
ASPTT HB played in the second division in the season 2009/2010.
Nancy is also a regular stage destination of the Tour de France,
twice (1962 and 1968) it was even the starting point of the tour.
The penultimate time was in Nancy in 2014, and the last time it ran
through the city was in 2019.
For amateur and school sports,
the city has 27 gymnasiums, 6 sports facilities, 14 specialized
facilities (boulodrome, skate park, shooting range, ...) and 18
freely accessible sports fields.[9] There are also several swimming
pools in and around the city.
Music
Every year in October,
the Nancy Jazz Pulsations Festival takes place in various venues in
Nancy.
It bears this name in memory of the old parish church of the Old Town of Nancy, dedicated to Saint Epvre, 7th bishop of Toul, built from 1436 to 1451, demolished in 1863 to make way for the current basilica, built in 1863 to 1875.
Traces of human settlement can be found from the 8th century BC. on
the hills of the city, where mining of the iron ore Minette is
documented. There are no finds from the period of Roman rule in Gaul. A
large Alemannic cemetery bears witness to a recent settlement of the
area during the migration period.
It was not until 1050 that
Count Gerhard, Duke of Lorraine, built a castle called Nanciacum, from
which the town was to develop. As a result of the War of Succession over
Champagne, Duke Theobald I faced his feudal lord and Emperor, Frederick
II. In 1218, this led to the siege and burning of Nancy by Frederick's
troops. Rebuilt and surrounded by a stone wall, the town received city
rights in 1265 and became the capital of the duchy in the decades that
followed.
On January 5, 1477, Charles the Bold of Burgundy failed
in the Battle of Nancy in an attempt to seize the city in order to
combine his possessions (Burgundy, Luxembourg and Flanders). He died of
his injuries not far from the town of Saint-Nicolas-de-Port. Nancy
experienced its heyday under Dukes Anton (1489–1544) and Charles III.
(1543-1608). At that time, the new town was planned to be founded in the
south of the old town, a network of streets crossing at right angles.
Until the 18th century, Nancy belonged to the Duchy of Lorraine and
thus to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. During the Thirty
Years' War, the city suffered severe devastation, captured by Jacques
Callot - an engraver from Nancy - in the cycle Horrors of War (now on
display in the Lorraine Museum). Nancy was repeatedly occupied by French
troops and returned to Duke Leopold after the Peace of Rijswijk in 1697
(around Lunéville), who had the city rebuilt. Eventually, the Duchy of
Lorraine passed to the Kingdom of France (Tuscany to Habsburg) as part
of an 18th-century exchange between the Holy Roman Emperor (House of
Habsburg) and the French king. Louis XV gave Lorraine in 1737 to the
deposed Polish king, Stanislaus I Leszczyński, who ruled the duchy from
Nancy and Lunéville as Duke of Lorraine. After his death in 1766, Nancy
and the duchy fell definitively to the French crown. Since 1777, the
city has been the seat of the bishopric of Nancy-Toul.
From 1669
to 1792 the Benedictine convent of Nancy existed.
During the
French Revolution, the city was the scene of the Nancy Affair in 1790.
The soldiers of the garrison, who sympathized with the Jacobins,
demanded, among other things, the payment of the pay and had fixed their
officers. The Marquis de Bouillé brutally crushed the revolt in street
battles. The ruthless actions of the Marquis and the death of the
officer André Désilles, who placed himself between the mutineers and
Bouillé's troops, moved all of France.
After the Franco-Prussian
War of 1870/71, the north-eastern, German-speaking part of Lorraine
became part of the German Empire (and from then on was administered
together with Alsace, which France had also ceded, as the Reichsland
Alsace-Lorraine), but not the western part around Nancy. The German
language designation Nanzig or Nanzég was occasionally (e.g. in the
Brockhaus of 1888) used as a German exonym. For a long time this
designation (in the form of Nanzég) has only been used in Luxembourg.
During the First World War and the nearby Battle of Grand-Couronné,
the town was repeatedly bombed by German air forces and artillery
positions in Hampont, 35 km away. This caused great damage and cost the
lives of 117 people.
On May 10, 1940, the garrison town of Nancy
was bombed by the Luftwaffe for the first time in World War II. At 4:15
a.m. an air raid warning was given; seven German bombers attacked the
city and its suburbs. In addition to considerable material damage, 18
people died, including several children. On June 18, 1940, Wehrmacht
soldiers took Nancy without a fight.
After France's military
defeat in World War II and almost four years of occupation, Nancy was
liberated by the 3rd US Army in September 1944 after the battle for
Nancy in the course of the Battle of Lorraine.
By plane
The local airport Metz-Nancy-Lorraine (IATA: ETZ) is
about 40 km north of Nancy. The small airport has few domestic French
connections as well as charter flights to warm-water destinations. The
connection to the city takes place (apart from cars/taxi) with shuttle
buses to the main station, the timetable of which is coordinated with
the flight times of the (few) flights. The fare is 8 euros one way.
Reservation needed.
If you really want to fly: The nearest
international airports are Luxembourg Airport (IATA: LUX) and Paris
Charles de Gaulle Airport (IATA: CDG).
By train
The
Nancy-Ville train station is a rail hub in eastern France and has TGV
and long-distance train connections to e.g. to Paris-Est and Strasbourg
and regional trains to Metz, Luneville, Bettembourg (Luxembourg), Dijon.
For Lorraine TGV train station there is a shuttle bus from the
station forecourt.
By bicycle
The Moselle cycle path is not
signposted here, but you can branch off from the Moselle to Nancy. La
Boucle de la Moselle is a cycle route that connects the city to the
Moselle.
In the street
Coming from the north (via Trier or
Saarbrücken), take the free A33 motorway to the Maxéville exit and park
at Cours Léopold for a day visit. From there, most sights can be reached
on foot.
By boat
Nancy is on the Meurthe, which, however, is
not developed to be navigable. Running parallel to this is the Canal de
la Marne au Rhin, which can be navigated by small cargo ships and is now
largely used by houseboats. In addition to the Rhine and Moselle, other
rivers in France can also be reached via the extensive network of
canals. Commercial passenger shipping is not offered.
In addition to a bus network, Nancy has a track trolleybus (Tramway
de Nancy) with rubber-tired tramcars.
Over 130 km of cycle paths
have been laid out in recent years. In addition, since 1999 there has
been a municipal bike rental service.
Nancy is located in north-eastern France, about 120 kilometers as the crow flies west of Strasbourg and 50 kilometers south of Metz. The city lies between wooded hills in a semi-valley, opening to the north-west. Several rivers run close to the city, including the Moselle, the Rhine-Marne Canal and the Meurthe, which forms the eastern city limits.
According to a decision of the City
Council of June 2008, Nancy is divided into 11 districts:
Ville
Vieille Leopold
Center Ville Charles III
Stanislas-Meurthe
Saint Pierre René II Marcel Bread
Mon Desert Jeanne d'Arc Saurupt
Clémenceau
Haussonville Blandan Donop
Poincare Foch Anatole France
Croix de Bourgogne
Beauregard Boufflers Buthegnémont
Boudonville
Scarpone Liberation
Plateau de Haye: Haut du Lièvre, Parc des
Carrieres, Gentilly
Trois Maisons Saint Fiacre Crosne Vayringe
Each district has its own citizens' office, a post office and some also
have their own gendarmerie.
At its closest, Nancy is located 630 km northeast of the Atlantic
Ocean, 555 km north of the Mediterranean Sea and 374 km southeast of the
North Sea. Also the climate is of semi-continental type (Cfb according
to the Köppen classification). The temperatures are contrasted, both
during the day and between the seasons. Winters are cold and dry with
freezing weather. Summers are not necessarily fully sunny but often hot.
Mists can be frequent at the end of autumn and the winds are generally
not very violent. Precipitation is less abundant than in the cities of
the Atlantic coast of the country.
Météo-France uses the readings
from the Nancy-Essey airport station for its local forecasts. This
station is located to the east of the Nancy conurbation, at an altitude
of 210 meters and three kilometers from Place Stanislas by orthodromic
distance.
Nancy experiences an average of 8 days of high heat and
73 days of frost per year. The average annual temperature is 10.5°C. The
highest temperature ever recorded in Nancy was 40.1°C on July 24, 2019
and the lowest temperature was -24.8°C on February 21, 1956, although
some sources indicate a temperature of -30°C December 8 and 10, 1879.
The wettest day, linked to a torrential storm generating a rainfall of
103 mm, occurred on May 21, 2012. The year with the highest rainfall was
1930 with an annual cumulative rainfall of 1048mm; 1949 is the year with
the lowest rainfall with an annual total of 465.8 mm. Nancy records an
average of 1,638 hours of sunshine per year. Nancy receives frequent
snowfalls in winter: in the winter of 2010-2011, 80 cm of accumulated
snow fell.