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Laval |
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Laval
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Location within Pays de la Loire region
Laval
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| Administration | |
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| Country | France |
| Region | Pays de la Loire |
| Department | Mayenne |
| Arrondissement | Laval |
| Mayor | Guillaume Garot (PS) (2008–2014) |
| Statistics | |
| Elevation | 42–122 m (138–400 ft) (avg. 70 m/230 ft) |
| Land area1 | 34.2 km2 (13.2 sq mi) |
| Population2 | 51,233 (2006) |
| - Density | 1,498 /km2 (3,880 /sq mi) |
| INSEE/Postal code | 53130/ 53000 |
| 1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. | |
| 2 Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once. | |
Laval (French pronunciation: [la.val]) is a commune in the Mayenne department in north-western France.
It lies on the threshold of Brittany and on the border between Normandy and Anjou. Its citizens are called Lavallois.
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Laval is located on the River Mayenne in the région called the Pays de la Loire in north-west central France (around the Loire Valley). It is the centre of an urban area of about 110,000 inhabitants.
Laval has a cool oceanic climate, and it rains all year, with 155 rainy days per year. Because of the high humidity, temperatures tend to feel colder than in the neighbouring departements. Summers are warm and rather sunny, winters are cold, very rainy and windy. Springs and autumns are cool, rainy, and usually overcast.
The town is historically a manufacturer of fine linens, but there are also foundries. Laval is also home to the Laval and Mayenne Technology Park, where firms working in electronics, computing and peripherals, food technology, veterinary pharmaceuticals, virtual reality, audiovisual productions, patents, marketing and a resource centre are all to be found in modern buildings.
It is also an important centre for the dairy industry and produces cheeses, ultra-high-temperature processing milk, and yogurt.
There is a market in the town centre every Tuesday and Saturday, held near the Palais de Justice.
The Gare de Laval railway station offers connections with Le Mans, Rennes, Paris and several regional destinations.
Laval is the main town of five cantons:
The urban area of Laval Agglomération covers twenty communes.
The following are the most recent mayors.
The "Grande Rue" was for several centuries one of the principal ways into Brittany.
The lords of Laval belong to a dynasty which made its mark in the history of France. After the Hundred Years' War (1337 to 1453), during which the town had been taken and re-taken by one army after another, the 15th century was a period of expansion. The town's walls were completed by the addition of a powerful artillery fort in an innovative design, known as the Tour Renaise. The lords, who were governors of Brittany after its independence came to an end in 1491, built a large, noble hall near the keep of their castle, and a grand vault for the burial of members of the family in the Minster of St Tugal. At the same time, the town of timber framed buildings was partially rebuilt. Its bourgeoisie built elegant houses and turrets in the upper town, around the rue des Cheveaux. The Abbots of Clermont asserted their rank with carved decoration on panels (consoles) set between the timbers framing their grand town house and in the manner of a cornice below the guttering of the eves.
During the Second Republic, the Second Empire and the early Third Republic the town saw its zenith. A number of linen factories and foundries sprung up in the town, and it began to thrive economically. On 21 November 1871, the Samelaine Monument was inaugurated to remind the Lavallois of their brave history. The Museum of Fine Arts and Sciences was completed in 1897 at the Herce square next to the Perrines, the terraced gardens and scenic promenade overlooking the city.
Between 1914 to 1918, with the Great War, many sons of the city died on the battle fields of Flanders to defend their home country against the onslaught by the Imperial German army, stalling the development of the city. In the period between 1918–1939 a new upper class emerged in the city, until in 1940 when the Democratic France was raided by the forces of Nazi Germany and Laval was occupied by the German Army. During the time of occupation the city suffered severe hardship, with Laval's Jewish inhabitants being deported to Death camps and many Lavallois taken Prisoner of War, having to work partially under slave-like conditions in the War Industries of Nazi Germany. The German occupation forces of Laval proved to be utmost brutal, with arbitrary internments, torture and executions of Laval's citizens being almost a daily occurrence. With its vicinity to the English Channel, however, there was the horizon of Liberty on the other side of the Channel, where the Free French Government under General Charles de Gaulle prepared the liberation of France. With the freedom of their city in mind, the French Resistance Movement of Laval, thus, inflicted on several occasions serious casualties on the German occupiers facilitating the liberation of France by the Allied Forces on D-Day. The German occupation was terminated in the afternoon of 6 August 1944, when the U.S. Third Army under General George S. Patton liberated Laval for good.
The town has obtained the label Ville d'Art et d'Histoire from the fact of its rich heritage.
As a response to the Douanier Rousseau's having been born in Laval, there is a biennial festival of naive art, the Biennale Internationale d'Art naïf de Laval. It seeks to explore the course of modern primitivism. Pictures are brought from all round Europe.
Laval is twinned with:
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