Strasbourg, the capital city of the Alsace region in north eastern France, is situated close to the border with Germany and is the principal city of the Bas-Rhin département. Its historic city centre, the Grande Île, was classified a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honour was placed on an entire city centre. The city has a population of 272,975 inhabitants and its urban community has 467,375 inhabitants. Strasbourg is the second largest Islamic place of worship in France, and the largest centre of manufacturing and engineering in France. The port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Duisburg, Germany.
Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions, such as the Council of Europe, the Eurocorps, and the European Parliament. Moreover, the city hosts the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine and the International Institute of Human Rights. Strasbourg is immersed in Franco-German culture and has served as a bridge of unity between France and Germany, despite a violent history. The University of Strasbourg is currently the second largest in France, and the city boasts coexistence of Catholic and Protestant culture.
The word Strasbourg has Germanic origins and means “town at the crossing of roads”. The modern Stras is cognate to the German Straße and English street, all of which are derived from Latin strata (paved road). The city lies in the Upper Rhine Plain, at between 132 metres and 151 metres above sea level. The upland areas of the Vosges Mountains are to the west, and the Black Forest is to the east. This section of the Rhine valley is a major axis of north-south travel, with river traffic on the Rhine itself, and major roads and railways paralleling it on both banks.
Strasbourg’s climate is classified as oceanic with warm, relatively sunny summers and cold, overcast winters. It receives elevated levels of precipitation from mid-spring to the end of summer, but remains largely constant throughout the year. Records show that on average, snow falls 30 days per year. The highest temperature recorded was 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) in August 2003, during the 2003 European heat wave. The lowest temperature ever recorded was −23.4 °C (−10.1 °F) in December 1938.
Reports have shown that the Romans established a military outpost belonging to the Germania Superior Roman province at Strasbourg’s current location and named it Argentoratum. The town is commonly called Argentina in medieval Latin. The name "Argentorate” preceded it as the toponym of the Gaulish settlement before being Latinized, but it is not known by how long. The Roman camp was destroyed by fire then rebuilt six times between the first and the fifth centuries AD. The centre of Argentoratum proper was situated on the Grande Île where the outline of the Roman castrum is visible in the street pattern. Many Roman artifacts were also found along the current Route des Romains, the road that led to Argentoratum, in the suburb of Kœnigshoffen.
From the fourth century, Strasbourg was the seat of the Bishopric of Strasbourg (made an Archbishopric in 1988). Archaeological excavations below the current Église Saint-Étienne in 1948 and 1956 unearthed the apse of a church dating back to the late fourth or early fifth century, considered to be the oldest church in Alsace. It is supposed that this was the first seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Strasbourg. In the ninth century, it was commonly known as Strazburg in the local language, as documented in 842 by the Oaths of Strasbourg. The town was also called Stratisburgum or Strateburgus in Latin, from which later came Strossburi in Alsatian and Straßburg in Standard German, and then Strasbourg in French. The Oaths of Strasbourg is the oldest written variety of Gallo-Romance (lingua romana) distinct from Latin, the ancestor of Old French.
Posted by PaChambers on 2015-06-21 09:19:35