Haguenau

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Administration
Commune of Haguenau (Hagenau)
Location
Longitude	07° 47' 19" E
Latitude	48° 49' 02" N
Country	France
Region	Alsace
Department	Bas-Rhin
Arrondissement	Haguenau
Canton	Haguenau (chief town)
Intercommunality	Communauté de communes de la région de Haguenau
Mayor	Pierre Strasser (2001-2008)
Statistics
Altitude	115 m–203 m (avg. 150 m)
Land area¹	182.59 km²
Population² (1999)	32,242
- Density (1999)	176/km²
Miscellaneous
INSEE/Postal code	67180/ 67500
¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 mi² or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
² Population sans doubles comptes: single count of residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel).

Haguenau (German: Hagenau) is a commune of northeastern France, in the Bas-Rhin département, of which it is a sous-préfecture. This city has a large forest, the largest undivided forest of France. It lies in the North of Strasbourg, at a distance of approximately 30 km.

1 Monuments
2 History
3 Sister cities
4 Births
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Monuments

Tour des Chevaliers (Tower of the knights)
Tour des Pêcheurs (Tower of the fishermen)
Musée historique (Historical Museum)
Musée Alsacien (Haguenau) (Alsatian Museum)
Cour Fleckenstein (Fleckenstein Court)
Eglise Saint Georges (church)
Eglise Saint Nicolas (church)

[edit] History

Haguenau dates from the beginning of the 12th century, and owes its origin to the erection of a hunting lodge by the dukes of Swabia. The emperor Frederick I Barbarossa surrounded it with walls and gave it town rights in 1154. On the site of the hunting lodge he founded an imperial palace, in which were preserved the "Crown Jewels of the Holy Roman Empire", i.e. the jewelled imperial crown, sceptre, imperial globe, and sword of Charlemagne.

Subsequently it became the seat of the Landvogt of Hagenau, the imperial advocatus in Lower Alsace. Richard of Cornwall king of the Romans, made it an imperial city in 1257. In the 14th century, it housed the executive council of the Decapole, a defensive and offensive association of ten Alsatian towns against the surrounding political instability. In 1648 it came into the possession of France, and in 1673 Louis XIV caused the fortifications to be razed. In 1675 it was captured by imperial troops, but in 1677 it was retaken by the French and nearly all destroyed by fire. In 1871 it fell, with the rest of Alsace-Lorraine, into the possession of Germany. During World War II, Easy Company of the 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne, portrayed in historian Stephen Ambrose's novel and miniseries; Band of Brothers, were stationed in Haguenau in early 1945. There are still families today with the last name of Hagenau.