Online Encyclopedia
Rennes
Rennes (Breton: Roazhon) is a commune of northwestern France. With a population of 212,494 (1999 census), it is the tenth most populous city in France. Population of the metropolitan area (French: aire urbaine) at the 1999 census was 521,188, ranking twelfth in France.
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Administration
Rennes is the capital of the French région of Brittany. It is the préfecture of the Ille-et-Vilaine département.
The current mayor of Rennes is Édouard Hervé.
Geography
The town is built of a bit of a hill, with the north side being more elevated than the south side.
Economy
Local industries include car manufacturing and telecommunications. Citroën, presently the largest employer of the population of Rennes, opened a manufacturing plant at Rennes La Janais in 1961 to manufacture the Ami.
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 le Travelling (a cinematic festival)) are well known throughout France.
Miscellaneous
Colleges, universities and research facilities
The city has two main universities (Université de Rennes 1 (http://www.univ-rennes1.fr/) (Science, technology, medicine, philosophy, law, management and economics-based centre) and the Université de Rennes 2 (http://www.uhb.fr/)(the arts, literature, languages, communication, human and social sciences, sport). The École Normale Supérieure de Cachan has a branch on the Ker Lann campus, just outside Rennes. An Ecole Superieur for science and politics (Sciences-Po) is based in Rennes called the Institut d'Etudes Politiques
The computer science & applied mathematics research institute IRISA is in the suburbs of Rennes.
The Rennes agglomeration has a large student population (around 60,000).
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. The metro line, called the VAL, which cost 500 million Euro to construct, is 9.4 km in length and has 15 stations, including one designed by architect Norman Foster.
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 (Honshu, Japan) since 1967.
- Louvain (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.
External link
- City council website http://www.ville-rennes.fr/
- Parlement de Bretagne http://www.parlement-bretagne.com