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Amiens

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Administration
Commune of Amiens Saint Leu area in Amiens
Location

Coordinates	49°53′32″N, 02°17′55″E
Country	France
Region	Picardie (capital)
Department	Somme (préfecture)
Arrondissement	Amiens
Canton	Chief town of 8 cantons
Intercommunality	Communauté d'agglomération Amiens Métropole
Mayor	Gilles de Robien (2007-2008)
Statistics
Altitude	14 m–106 m (avg. 33 m)
Land area¹	49.46 km²
Population² (1999)	135,501
- Density (1999)	2,740/km²
Miscellaneous
INSEE/Postal code	80021/ 80000
¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 mi² or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
² Population sans doubles comptes: single count of residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel).

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

1 History
2 Sights
3 Miscellaneous
4 See also
5 External links

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, divided 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.

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 facade 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, garden on small islands in the marshland along the Somme River, surrounded by a grid network of man-made canals.

The Battle of Amiens was the opening phase of the Hundred Days Offensive in World War I.
Jules Verne was a member of the city council of Amiens from 1888 to his death in 1905. He is buried in the Madeleine Cemetery.
Clovis Trouille, 1889-1975, was born in Amiens and trained at the École des Beaux-Arts from 1905 to 1910.
Amiens was the birthplace of Peter the Hermit and Odette Sansom (1912-95), a heroic member of the French Resistance.
Édouard Lucas, 1842-1891, a French mathematician and inventor of the Tower of Hanoi game was born in Amiens.
Amiens is celebrated for a treaty of peace between France and England concluded in 1802.
Amiens is home to Amiens SC, a football team in Ligue 2, the second-highest league in French football.
Amiens is also a setting in the video game Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem.
Amiens was the setting for much of Sebastian Faulks wartime novel Birdsong