Rouen

Rouen, city in northern France, capital of the Seine-Maritime Department, on the River Seine in Normandy. The city is a busy river port—as the closest port to Paris for ocean-going vessels on the Seine, Rouen handles cargo headed for the capital. Rouen is also a major manufacturing centre whose products include textiles, clothing, paper, refined petroleum, and chemicals.

The city was badly damaged in World War II, but most of its numerous architectural monuments were restored after 1945. The left bank suburbs were rebuilt rather than restored, and contain much of the city’s heavy industry. The city proper, however, on the right bank of the Seine, was largely restored to its pre-war half-timbered medieval look and attracts considerable tourism. One of its most famous features is the Gros Horloge, a beautiful clock on a 16th-century building near the Joan of Arc Church. Important buildings here include the Gothic cathedral of Notre Dame (12th-15th century), noted for its Tour de Beurre (“butter tower”), which contains a large carillon; the large Flamboyant-Gothic church of St Maclou (15th century); the church of St Ouen (12th-15th century); the Tour de Jeanne d'Arc, a tower in which Joan of Arc was imprisoned in 1430; and the Late Gothic Palais de Justice, once the seat of the parlement (law courts) of Normandy. The Museum of Fine Arts and Ceramics here contains a notable collection of the faience and porcelain for which Rouen was famous from the 16th to the 18th centuries. The University of Rouen (1966) is in Mont-St-Aignan, to the north of the centre of Rouen.

Called Rotomagus by the Romans, the city became an archiepiscopal see in the 5th century, and in 912 it was made the seat of the duchy of Normandy. During the Hundred Years' War, Rouen was held by the English from 1419 to 1449; Joan of Arc was burned at the stake by the English in the old market place in 1431. Rouen was a centre of Protestantism during the Reformation, and many of its inhabitants emigrated after the Edict of Nantes (1598), assuring Protestants of many rights, was revoked in 1685. The city developed as a textile centre in the 19th century. It was occupied by the Germans during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) and World War II. Population 109,600 (2005 estimate).