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Coordinates: 49°33′50″N 3°37′28″E / 49.5638888889, 3.62444444444

Commune of Laon

Location
Laon (France)
Laon
Administration
Country France
Region Picardie
Department Aisne
Arrondissement Laon
Intercommunality Laon
Mayor Antoine Lefèvre (UMP)
(2001-2008)
Statistics
Elevation 63 m–183 m
(avg. A geographic coordinate system enables every location on the Earth to be specified in three coordinates using mainly a spherical coordinate system. Wikipedia talkFeatured lists for an explanation of this and other inclusion tags below -->This list of countries, arranged alphabetically This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. France is divided into 26 regions or régions (in French of which 21 are in continental Metropolitan France, one is the island of Corsica, Picardie ( English: Picardy is one of the 26 regions of France. In the context of the political and geographic organization of France and many of its former colonies a department (département depaʁtǝmɑ̃ is an Administrative division Aisne (ɛn is a department in the northern part of France named after the Aisne River. The 100 French departments are divided into 342 arrondissements, which may be translated into English as districts. The arrondissement of Laon is an arrondissement of Francelocated in the Aisne département, in the Picardie région The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. A mayor (from the Latin māior, meaning "greater" is a modern title used in many countries for the highest ranking officer in a municipal government The elevation of a Geographic location is its height above a fixed reference point often the mean sea level. 83 m)
Land area¹ 42. 00 km²
Population²
(1999)		 26,265
 - Density 625/km² (1999)
Miscellaneous
INSEE/Postal code 02408/ 02000
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0. As of January 1, 2008, 64473140 people live in the French Republic. Population density (in agriculture standing stock and Standing crop) is a measurement of Population per unit area or unit volume The INSEE code is a numerical indexing code used by the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE to identify various entities including communes Postal codes were introduced in France in 1972, when La Poste introduced automated sorting. Square Kilometre ( US spelling square kilometer) symbol km2, is a decimal multiple of the SI unit of 386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. The square mile is an imperial and US unit of Area equal the area of a square of one statute mile. An estuary is a semi-enclosed Coastal body of Water with one or more Rivers or Streams flowing into it and with a free connection to the open
2 Population sans doubles comptes: residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel) only counted once. C D E
France

Laon (IPA: [lɑ̃]) is a city in Picardie in northern France, capital of the Aisne department. Picardie ( English: Picardy is one of the 26 regions of France. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Aisne (ɛn is a department in the northern part of France named after the Aisne River. In the context of the political and geographic organization of France and many of its former colonies a department (département depaʁtǝmɑ̃ is an Administrative division

Contents

History

The hilly district of Laon has always had some strategic importance. In the time of Julius Caesar there was a Gallic village where the Remis (inhabitants of the country round Reims) had to meet the onset of the confederated Belgae. This article is about a tribe for alternate meanings see Remi (disambiguation. Reims (alternative English spelling Rheims; riːmz in English and /ʁɛ̃s/ in French) is a city of the Champagne-Ardenne région of northern The Belgae were a group of tribes living in northern Gaul in the 1st century BC and later also attested in Britain. Whatever may have been the precise locality of that battlefield, Laon was fortified by the Romans, and successively checked the invasions of the Franks, Burgundians, Vandals, Alans and Huns. The Franks or Frankish people (Franci or gens Francorum) were West Germanic tribes first identified in the 3rd century as an Ethnic group The Burgundians or Burgundes were an East Germanic tribe which may have emigrated from mainland Scandinavia to the island of Bornholm, whose The Alans or Alani (occasionally but more rarely termed Alauni or Halani) were an Iranian nomadic group among the Sarmatian people The Huns were an early confederation of Central Asian equestrian nomads or semi-nomads with a Turkic core of aristocracy At that time it was known as Alaudanum or Lugdunum Clavatum.

Remigius, archbishop of Reims, who baptized Clovis, was born in the Laonnais, and it was he who, at the end of the 5th century, instituted the bishopric of Laon. Saint Remigius (Saint Rémi or Saint Rémy Remigio Remigio Romieg Remigiusz and Remig was Bishop of Reims and Apostle of the Franks, (c The diocese of Laon was a Catholic Diocese in France for around 1300 years up to the French Revolution. Thenceforward Laon was one of the principal towns of the kingdom of the Franks, and the possession of it was often disputed. Charles the Bald had enriched its church with the gift of very numerous domains. Charles the Bald ( 13 June 823 – 6 October 877) Holy Roman Emperor (875–877 as Charles II) and King of West Francia After the fall of the Carolingians Laon took the part of Charles of Lorraine, their heir, and Hugh Capet only succeeded in making himself master of the town by the connivance of the bishop, who, in return for this service, was made second ecclesiastical peer of the kingdom. The Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolings, or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family with its origins in the Hugh Capet (c 940 &ndash 24 October, 996) was the first King of France of the eponymous Capetian dynasty from his election to succeed the

Early in the 12th century the communes of France set about emancipating themselves, and the history of the commune of Laon is one of the richest and most varied. The citizens had profited by a temporary absence of Bishop Gaudry to secure from his representatives a communal charter, but he, on his return, purchased from the king of France the revocation of this document, and recommenced his oppressions. Waldric was the eighth Lord Chancellor and Lord Keeper of England, from 1102 to 1107. The consequence was a revolt, in which the episcopal palace was burnt and the bishop and several of his partisans were put to death (25 april 1112 . The fire spread to the cathedral, and reduced it to ashes. Uneasy at the result of their victory, the rioters went into hiding outside the town, which was anew pillaged by the people of the neighborhood, eager to avenge the death of their bishop.

The king alternately intervened in favor of the bishop and of the inhabitants till 1239. After that date the liberties of Laon were no more contested till 1331, when the commune was abolished. During the Hundred Years' War it was attacked and taken by the Burgundians, who gave it up to the English, to be retaken by the French after the consecration of Charles VII. The Hundred Years' War (Guerre de Cent Ans was a prolonged conflict lasting from 1337 to 1453 between two royal houses for the French throne vacant with the extinction of the senior Charles VII (22 February 1403 – 22 July 1461 called the Victorious (le Victorieux or the Well-Served (le Bien-Servi was King of France from 1422

Under the League, Laon took the part of the Leaguers, and was taken by Henry IV. Henry IV (Henri IV ( 13 December 1553 &ndash 14 May 1610) ruled as King of France from 1589 to 1610 and as Henry III During the campaign of 1814 Napoleon tried in vain to dislodge von Blücher from it in the Battle of Laon. Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821 was a French military and political leader who had a significant impact on the History of Europe. Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher Fürst (Prince von Wahlstatt (gɛphaɐt lebəʁɛçt fɔn blyçɐ December 16 1742 - September 12 1819 The Battle of Laon ( March 9 - 10, 1814) was the victory of Blücher's Prussian army over Napoleon's French

In 1870 an engineer blew up the powder magazine of the citadel at the moment when the German troops were entering the town. Many lives were lost; and the cathedral and the old episcopal palace were damaged. At the Revolution Laon permanently lost its rank as a bishopric. The French Revolution (1789–1799 was a period of political and social upheaval in the History of France, during which the French governmental structure previously an

Sights

Notre-Dame of Laon
Notre-Dame of Laon

The city contains many medieval buildings. The cathedral of Notre-Dame of Laon is one of the most important examples of the Gothic architecture of the 12th and 13th centuries ranking with the cathedrals of Saint-Étienne The most important of these is the cathedral Notre-Dame of Laon, dating mostly from the 12th and 13th centuries. This article is about the history and organisation of the cathedral The cathedral of Notre-Dame of Laon is one of the most important examples of the Gothic architecture of the 12th and 13th centuries ranking with the cathedrals of Saint-Étienne The chapter-house and the cloister contain beautiful specimens of the architecture of the beginning of the 13th century. A chapter house is a building or room attached to a Cathedral or Collegiate church in which meetings are held A cloister (from Latin claustrum) is a part of Cathedral, Monastic and Abbey architecture The old episcopal palace, contiguous to the cathedral, is now used as a court-house. A palace is a grand residence especially the home of a Head of state or some other high-ranking Public figure. The front, flanked by turrets, is pierced by great pointed windows. In Architecture, a turret (from Italian: torretta, little tower Latin: turris, tower is a small Tower that There is also a Gothic cloister and an old chapel of two storeys, of a date anterior to the cathedral.

The church of St Martin dates from the middle of the 12th century. The old abbey buildings of the same foundation are now used as the hospital. St Martin's Abbey Laon, was one of the earliest foundations of the Premonstratensian Order in about 1120 The museum of Laon had collections of sculpture and painting. In its garden there is a chapel of the Templars belonging to the 12th century. The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici commonly known as the Knights Templar or the Order The church of the suburb of Vaux near the railway station dates from the 11th and 12th centuries.

Transportation

The town has the only fully automated municipal cable car system in the world, called the Poma 2000. A cable car or cable railway is a Mass transit system using rail cars that are propelled by a continuously moving cable running at a constant speed The Poma 2000 in Laon, France, is an automated guideway transit a cable-driven People mover which runs between the railway station and It links the upper town (the historical center, located on a plateau) with the lower town, has three stations and runs on rubber tyres. In contrast, the San Francisco cable car system is manually operated, and all the other automated cable car systems have restricted operations within airports and hospitals. The San Francisco cable car system is the world's last permanently operational manually-operated cable car system and is an icon of San Francisco, California

Miscellaneous

Laon was the birthplace of:

Laon is twinned with the city of Winchester in England. Theology is the study of a god or the gods from a religious perspective Father Jacques Marquette ( June 1, 1637 &ndash May 18, 1675) was a French Missionary who founded Michigan The Society of Jesus ( Latin: Societas Iesu, SJ and SI or SJ, SI) is a Catholic religious order A missionary is a member of a Religion who works to convert those who do not share the missionary's faith someone who proselytizes. Pierre François André Méchain ( August 16, 1744 &ndash September 20, 1804) was a French Astronomer and surveyor Winchester or Winton ( archaic) is a historic city in southern England, with a population of around 40000 within a radius of its centre

Laon is featured in the book Pursuit of Passy by D. M. Crook.

External link and reference

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