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.

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 Edmond Hervé, who has been in power since 1977, when he replaced Henri Fréville.

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 (hence the name of the département Ille-et-Vilaine).

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.

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 Rennes agglomeration has a large student population (around 60,000).

The city has two main universities:

• Université de Rennes 1 [1] (http://www.univ-rennes1.fr/): science, technology, medicine, philosophy, law, management and economics-based centre
• Université de Rennes 2 [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 École Supérieure for science and politics (Sciences-Po) is based in Rennes called the Institut d'Etudes Politiques [3] (http://www.rennes.iep.fr) The computer science and applied mathematics research institute IRISA is in the suburbs of Rennes.

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.
• Plateau Dogon (Mali) since ???

External links

• City council website (http://www.ville-rennes.fr/)
• Parlement de Bretagne (http://www.parlement-bretagne.com)
• Rennes on Wikitravel (http://wikitravel.org/en/article/Rennes)

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