Dieppe, Seine-Maritime

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Coordinates: 49°55′20″N 1°04′43″E / 49.9222, 1.0786

Administration
Commune of Dieppe
Location

Country	France
Region	Haute-Normandie
Department	Seine-Maritime (sous-préfecture)
Arrondissement	Dieppe
Canton	Dieppe (chief town)
Mayor	Sébastien Jumel (PCF) (2008 – 2014)
Statistics
Elevation	5 m–70 m
Land area^¹	11.67 km²
Population^² (1999)	34,653
- Density	2,969/km² (1999)
Miscellaneous
INSEE/Postal code	76217/ 76200
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.

Dieppe is a town and commune in the Seine-Maritime department and Haute-Normandie region of France. At the 1999 census the town had 34,653 inhabitants (Dieppois), while the population of the whole Dieppe urban area (aire urbaine) was 81,419.

A port on the English Channel, famous for its scallops, and with a regular ferry service from the Gare Maritime to Newhaven in England, Dieppe also has a popular pebbled beach, a 15th-century castle and the churches of Saint Jacques and Saint Rémi.

1 Geography
2 History
- 2.1 Famous people
3 Sights
4 Transport
5 Current services
6 Former services
7 Twin towns
8 External links

[edit] Geography

Dieppe belongs to the Pays de Caux region of France.

[edit] History

First recorded as a small fishing settlement in 1030, Dieppe was an important prize fought over during the Hundred Years' War. Dieppe housed the most advanced French school of cartography in the 16th century, and was the premier port of the kingdom in the 17th century. On July 23, 1632, 300 colonists heading to New France departed from Dieppe. At the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Dieppe lost 3000 of its Huguenot citizens, who fled abroad.

Dieppe was an important target in wartime; the town was largely destroyed by an Anglo-Dutch naval bombardment in 1694. Rebuilt after 1696, it was popularised as a seaside resort following the 1824 visit of the widowed Duchess of Berry, Charles X's daughter-in-law. She encouraged the building of the recently-renovated municipal theater, the Petit-Theatre (1825), associated particularly with Camille Saint-Saëns.

During the later nineteenth century, Dieppe became popular with English artists as a beach resort. Prominent literary figures such as Arthur Symons loved to keep up with the latest fads of avant-garde France here, and during "the season" sometimes stayed for weeks on end.

The Dieppe Raid in the Second World War became known as a bloody battle, and a costly one for the Allies. On August 19, 1942 Allied soldiers, mainly Canadian, landed at Dieppe in the hope of occupying the town for a short time, gaining intelligence and drawing the Luftwaffe into open battle. The Allies suffered more than 1,400 deaths, 1,946 Canadian soldiers were captured, and no major objectives were achieved.

Dieppe, New Brunswick (previously Léger Corner) received its present name in 1946, in honour of the Canadian soldiers killed in the Dieppe Raid.

[edit] Famous people

Louis de Broglie, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, was born in Dieppe.

Emmanuel 'Manu' Petit, a World Cup-winning footballer, is from Dieppe.

St. Jean de LaLande SJ, a seventeeth century Jesuit brother who was martyred by the Iroquois Indians in present-day New York State.

St. Antoine Daniel SJ, martyr and saint.

Jean (Johan) Cossin(s), one of the first to show the Sinusoidal projection, he used it for a world map of 1570.

Historical images of Dieppe

View of Dieppe's Grand quai	Georges Boillot winning the 1912 French Grand Prix in Dieppe	Carl Spitzweg's painting Frauenbad in Dieppe III	Frits Thaulow's Fra Dieppe med elven Arques (From Dieppe with the river Arques)
Nicolae Vermont's painting View of Dieppe's beach (1929)

[edit] Sights

The castle, Château de Dieppe, which survived the 1694 bombardment, is now a museum and exhibition space, with a strong maritime collection. A rich collection of 17th- and 18th century ivory carvings, including lacy folding fans, for which Dieppe was known, and the furnishings and papers of Camille Saint-Saens. The castle's interior courtyard is picturesque.

At the Square du Canada, near the castle in a park at the western end of the Esplanade, there is a monument erected by the town commemorating the long relationship between Dieppe and Canada. The events recorded begin with the early 16th century, and culminate with the Dieppe Raid and the liberation of Dieppe by Canadians on September 1, 1944. The base of the monument is inscribed with the words "nous nous souvenons" ("we remember"). Above the monument, the Canadian Maple Leaf flag is flown side-by-side with that of France.

Some of the Canadian soldiers who were killed are buried in the Dieppe Canadian War Cemetery, in the commune of Hautôt-sur-Mer south of Dieppe.

Images of Dieppe today