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Colmar

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Coordinates: 48°04′54″N, 07°21′20″E

Administration
Commune of Colmar

Christmas at Colmar
Location

Coordinates	48°04′54″N, 07°21′20″E
Country	France
Region	Alsace
Department	Haut-Rhin (préfecture)
Arrondissement	Colmar
Canton	Chief town of 2 cantons
Intercommunality	Communauté d'agglomération de Colmar
Mayor	Gilbert Meyer (2001-2008)
Statistics
Elevation	175 m–214 m (avg. 197 m)
Land area^¹	66.57 km²
Population^² (1999)	65,136
- Density	978/km² (1999)
Miscellaneous
INSEE/Postal code	68066/ 68000
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: single count of residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel).

Petite Venise

Colmar (French: Colmar, pronounced^[help] [kɔlmaʁ]; Alsatian: Colmer, pronounced [ˈkolməʁ]; German: Colmar) is a town and commune in the Haut-Rhin département of Alsace, France.

In 1999 Colmar had a population of 65,136. Colmar is also the chief town of the arrondissement of Colmar, with 86,832 inhabitants.

1 History
2 Geography
3 Climate
4 Culture
5 Famous people
6 Twin towns
7 See also
8 External links

Colmar was founded in the 9th century. This was the location where Charles the Fat held a diet in 884. Colmar was granted the status of a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire in 1226. During the Thirty Years' War, the city was taken by the armies of Sweden in 1632, who held it for two years. The city was conquered by France under Louis XIV in 1697.

In 1679 (Treaty of Nimwegen) Colmar was ceded to France. With the rest of Alsace, Colmar was annexed by the newly formed German Empire in 1871 as a result of the Franco-Prussian War. It returned to France after World War I, was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1940, and then reverted to French control after the battle of the "Colmar Pocket" in 1945.

Colmar is 40 miles (64 kilometers) south-southwest of Strasbourg, at 48.08°N, 7.36°E, on the Lauch River. It is connected to the Rhine by a canal.

With an average annual rainfall level of just 530 mm/m² (21 inches) per year, Colmar is the dryest town in France. This results from the town's location directly to the east of the Vosges Mountains. The mountains force clouds arriving from the west to rise, and much of their moisture to condense and fall as precipitation over the higher ground, leaving the air warmed and dried by the time it reaches Colmar.

Colmar has a sunny microclimate and is the driest city in France, with an annual precipitation of just 550 mm, making it ideal for Alsace wine. Colmar is also the Capital of Alsatian wine.

The well-preserved old city center houses several, sometimes large-scale buildings in German Gothic and early Renaissance style, as well as a number of old churches, among which the collégiale Saint-Martin (13th-16th century) is the largest and most noteworthy. Local 15th century artist Martin Schongauer painted what is considered his masterpiece, The Madonna of the Roses, in Colmar's Eglise des Dominicains(Dominican Church). Matthias Grünewald's famous Isenheim Altarpiece is the most noteworthy of the treasures housed in the city's Musée Unterlinden, the largest and most visited fine arts museum in Alsace.

Other Museums are the Musée Bartholdi housed in the very birthplace of Frédéric Bartholdi, the Musée d'histoire naturelle et d'ethnographie (Muséeum for Natural History and Ethnography) founded in 1859, and the Musée du Jouet (Toy Museum), founded in 1993.