Rennes
From Freepedia
Rennes (Gallo: Resnn, Breton: Roazhon) is a city of northwestern France, in the east of Brittany. Rennes is the capital of the Bretagne région, as well as the préfecture of the Ille-et-Vilaine département.
Population of the city (commune) of Rennes at the 1999 census was 206,229 inhabitants (209,100 inhabitants as of February 2004 estimates). Population of the whole metropolitan area (French: aire urbaine) at the 1999 census was 521,188 inhabitants, ranking twelfth in France.
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Administration
The current mayor of Rennes is Edmond Hervé, incumbent since 1977, when he replaced Henri Fréville. His "mairie" (mayor's office) is right in the centre of Rennes. Rennes is divided into 11 cantons:
- Le canton de Rennes-Bréquigny (15 397 habitants)
- Le canton de Rennes-Centre (19 017 habitants)
- Le canton de Rennes-Centre-Ouest (21 264 habitants)
- Le canton de Rennes-Centre-Sud (15 774 habitants)
- Le canton de Rennes-Est (20 323 habitants)
- Le canton de Rennes-le-Blosne (21 151 habitants)
- Le canton de Rennes-Nord (21 845 habitants)
- Le canton de Rennes-Nord-Est (18 224 habitants)
- Le canton de Rennes-Nord-Ouest parts of Rennes and communes of Gévezé, Pacé and Parthenay-de-Bretagne (28 130 habitants)
- Le canton de Rennes-Sud-Est parts of Rennes and communes of Chantepie and Vern-sur-Seiche (33 459 habitants)
- Le canton de Rennes-Sud-Ouest parts of Rennes and communes of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Lande and Vezin-le-Coquet (28 707 habitants)
Geography
The town is built on a hill, with the north side being more elevated than the south side. It is at the meeting point of two rivers: the Ille and the Vilaine
History
- See separate article History of Rennes.
Economy
Local industries include car manufacturing and telecommunications. Citroën, currently the largest employer of the population of Rennes, opened a manufacturing plant at Rennes La Janais in 1961 to manufacture the Ami.
Rennes is also one of 9 Technopoles in France that were established in an effort to stimulate the economies of regions other than Paris during the Aménagement du territoire.
Culture
Rennes invests heavily in arts and culture and a number of its festivals (such as the music festival Les Transmusicales, les Tombées de la Nuit and Travelling (a cinematic festival)) are well known throughout France. Rennes was one of the first towns in France to have its own television channel 'TV Rennes', created in 1987. Rennes is home to Stade Rennais FC, who play at Route de Lorient in the French Premier League.
Miscellaneous
Colleges, universities and research facilities
The Rennes agglomeration has a large student population (around 60,000).
The city has two main universities:
- Université de Rennes 1 [1]: science, technology, medicine, philosophy, law, management and economics-based centre
- Université de Rennes 2 [2]: the arts, literature, languages, communication, human and social sciences, sport
In addition:
- The École Normale Supérieure de Cachan has a branch on the Ker Lann campus, just outside Rennes.
- An École Supérieure for political science (Sciences-Po) is based in Rennes called the Institut d'Etudes Politiques [3]
- The computer science and applied mathematics research institute IRISA is in the suburbs of Rennes.
- The Délégation Générale pour l'Armement (defense procurement agency) operates the CELAR research center, dedicated to electronics and computing, in Bruz, a suburb.
- The École Supérieure d'Électricité - Supélec has a branch in the west of the city (Cesson-Sévigné).
- The grande école Institut National des Sciences Appliquées
Transportation
Rennes has well developed national road, rail and air links and is two hours by TGV train from Paris. Local transport is based primarily on an extensive bus network (38 different lines) and a metro line that was inaugurated in March 2002 and cost €500 millions to build. The Rennes Metro is 9.4 km in length and has 15 stations, including one designed by architect Norman Foster. Rennes is one of the smallest cities in the world to have a metro.
See also: Rennes Rail Station
Twinned towns
These twinned towns are inscribed on the bridge over the central canal of Rennes:
- Exeter (UK) since 1957.
- Rochester (New York, USA) since 1958.
- Erlangen (Germany) since 1964.
- Brno (Czech Republic) since 1965.
- Sendai (Miyagi, Japan) since 1967.
- Leuven (Belgium) since 1980.
- Cork (Ireland) since 1982.
- Setif (Algeria) since 1982.
- Rennes-les-Bains (Aude, France) since 1985.
- Jinan (Shandong, China) since 1985.
- Almaty (Alma-Ata in Kazahakstan) since 1991.
- Poznan (Poland) since 1998.
- Sibiu (Romania) since 1999.
- Plateau Dogon (Mali) since 1999
