Amiens

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Coordinates: 49°53′32″N, 02°17′55″E

Commune of Amiens

Saint Leu area in Amiens

Location
Coordinates 49°53′32″N, 02°17′55″E
Administration
Country France
Region Picardie (préfecture)
Department Somme (préfecture)
Arrondissement Amiens
Canton Chief town of 8 cantons
Intercommunality Communauté d'agglomération Amiens Métropole
Mayor Gilles Demailly (PS)
(2008-2014)
Statistics
Elevation 14 m–106 m
(avg. 33 m)
Land area¹ 49.46 km²
Population²
(1999)
135,501
 - Density 2,740/km² (1999)
Miscellaneous
INSEE/Postal code 80021/ 80000
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
2 Population sans doubles comptes: residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel) only counted once.
France

Amiens (IPA[amjɛ̃]) is a city and commune in the north of France, 120 km north of Paris. It is the préfecture (capital city) of the Somme département and the Picardie region. It is considered the Picarde capital of France.

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[edit] History

The Paleolithic culture named Acheulean was named for its first identified site, in Saint-Acheul, a suburb of Amiens. Amiens, the Roman Samarobriva, was the central settlement of the Ambiani, one of the principal tribes of Gaul, who were issuing coinage, probably from Amiens, in the first century BCE. By tradition, it was at the gates of Amiens that Saint Martin of Tours, at the time still a Roman soldier, shared his cloak with a naked beggar. Saint Honorius (Honoré) (d. 600 CE) was the seventh bishop of the city.

Amiens was later the capital of Picardy.

During World War II, on 18 February 1944, Nazi-occupied Amiens was the site of Operation Jericho, a British operation which freed 258 people by bombing Amiens prison.

[edit] Sister cities

[edit] Sights

The cathedral in Amiens
The cathedral in Amiens

Amiens Cathedral (a World Heritage Site) is the tallest of the large 'classic' Gothic churches of the 13th century and is the largest in France of its kind. After a fire destroyed the former cathedral, the new nave was begun in 1220 - and finished in 1247. Amiens Cathedral is notable for the coherence of its plan, the beauty of its three-tier interior elevation, the particularly fine display of sculptures on the principal façade and in the south transept, and the labyrinth, and other inlays of its floor. It is described as the "Parthenon of Gothic architecture," and by John Ruskin as "Gothic, clear of Roman tradition and of Arabian taint, Gothic pure, authoritative, unsurpassable, and unaccusable."

Amiens is also known for the hortillonnages, gardens on small islands in the marshland along the Somme River, surrounded by a grid network of man-made canals.

[edit] Miscellaneous

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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