Douai

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Douai
Coat of arms of Douai
Douai (France)
Douai
region Hauts-de-France
Department North
Arrondissement Douai
Canton Douai (main town)
Community association Douaisis
Coordinates 50 ° 22 ′  N , 3 ° 5 ′  E Coordinates: 50 ° 22 ′  N , 3 ° 5 ′  E
height 16-38 m
surface 16.88 km 2
Residents 39,700 (January 1, 2017)
Population density 2,352 inhabitants / km 2
Post Code 59500
INSEE code
Website www.ville-douai.fr

Douai [ dwɛ ] ( Dutch. Dowaai , older form Douay , lat. Duacum ) is a northern French city with 39,700 inhabitants (at January 1, 2017) in Nord , in the region of Hauts-de-France and is the seat of a sub-prefecture .

location

The city is located on the Scarpe River , 200 km from Paris , 40 km south of Lille and 25 km from Arras .

history

Evacuation of the city in 1916
Bell tower of Douai , Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot , 1871.

Douai probably originated in the area of ​​the late ancient Roman fortress Castrum Duacense . Douai has belonged to the Counts of Flanders since the 9th century . By the 12th century it developed into a center of the Flemish cloth industry as well as an important trading town and received city ​​rights at the end of the 12th century . In 1312 (until 1369) it fell to the French crown domain .

In 1384 Flanders and with him Douai became part of the territories of Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy through marriage, which in 1477 in turn came largely to the dominion of the then Archduke and later Emperor Maximilian I through marriage . H. to the so-called Burgundian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire . When this went to the Spanish crown after the death of Emperor Charles V (1558) , Douai and Flanders became part of the Spanish Netherlands .

In 1562 King Philip II founded a university in Douai , whose students included Moritz von Büren , who later became President of the Imperial Court of Justice . It was moved to Lille in 1888 .

After Douai had been conquered by Louis XIV in the so-called war of devolution in 1667 , it came to France the following year through the Peace of Aachen . During the War of the Spanish Succession , it was taken on June 26, 1710 by the Allies under Marlborough after a two-month siege. Villars tried unsuccessfully to take Douai by surprise, but took it by surrender on September 7, 1712. So it came back to France, to which it fell permanently through the Peace of Utrecht in 1713. 1713–1789 Douai was the seat of the Flemish Parliament ; After the outbreak of the French Revolution , it served as the administrative seat of the North Department from 1790 to 1802 .

The aircraft designer Breguet founded his aircraft company here in 1911 , and his airfield was used by the German air force during the First World War . The city ​​was heavily bombed during the First and Second World Wars .

In 1990 the last remaining mine was closed.

Economy and Transport

The city is located in the northern French coal basin and lived for a long time from coal mining , from the metal and vehicle industries . Douai is a center of the chemical industry . There is also a Renault car factory in Douai . The Mégane and Scénic models are produced here; In 2009, 4,900 employees produced around 165,000 cars. Since the introduction of the Talisman model as a sedan and the Grand Tour estate version in 2016, this has also been produced there.

Douai has had a station on the Paris – Lille line since 1846 . Today Douai is directly connected to Paris by the TGV ; the journey time is around 75 minutes. The Douai electric tram ran from 1898 to 1950.

Attractions

Fêtes de Gayant 1984 in Douai
Marie Cagenon, wife of Gayant 2005

The city's landmark is the belfry , a tower built in 1380 that initially served as a watchtower. Since 2005 it has been part of the Belfries UNESCO World Heritage Site in France . Inside there has been a carillon since 1391 , which today is one of the largest in Europe with 62 bells.

The former Carthusian monastery from the 16th century served military purposes during the French Revolution and was damaged during the bombing of the city during World War II . The Musée de la Chartreuse art museum has been housed here since 1958 .

The head of St. Margaret of Scotland is kept in the Jesuit Church .

The Fêtes de Gayant , in early July (weekend after July 5th) held parades with figures of giants, which are up about eight feet high were a year 2005 by the UNESCO as part of the parades of giants and dragons in Belgium and France in the List of masterpieces of the oral and intangible heritage of mankind added.

Personalities

science

Since 1878, Douai has had an engineering college, the École des mines .

Partnerships

Town twinning

Douai is twinned with

  • United KingdomUnited Kingdom Harrow in the Greater London region of England
  • BelgiumBelgium Seraing in Wallonia (Belgium), since 1964
  • GermanyGermany Recklinghausen in North Rhine-Westphalia, since 1965
  • United StatesUnited States Kenosha in Wisconsin (USA)
  • Burkina FasoBurkina Faso Dédougou in Burkina Faso, since 2003
  • PolandPoland Puławy in the Lublin Voivodeship (Poland), since 2004

Other partnerships

  • Since 1969 there has been an annual mutual exchange between the Lycée Albert Chatelet, Douai and the Gymnasium Petrinum , Recklinghausen.
  • The Lycée Jean-Baptiste Corot maintains a partnership with the Marie-Curie-Gymnasium in Recklinghausen.
  • The Collège André Streinger in Douai maintains a long-term student exchange with the Windthorst-Gymnasium in Meppen .
  • For many years there has also been a student exchange between Douai and the Bad Gandersheim secondary school (Germany).
  • In addition, there is a close partnership between the Lycées Saint Jean and the Benedictine high school in Meschede , which enables an annual exchange program for students and the stay of German language assistants (assistants allemands) in France.

literature

  • Le Patrimoine des Communes du Nord. Flohic Editions, Volume 1, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-84234-119-8 , pp. 649-681.

Web links

Commons : Douai  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Document from Renault company; Figures for Douai on p. 37 ( Memento of the original from August 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 4.1 MB), accessed on December 25, 2010  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.renault.com
  2. Joachim Schäfer: Margaret of Scotland. In: www.heiligenlexikon.de. Retrieved March 14, 2020 .