A Duchy of Normandy is a formerly independent duchy situated in northern France occupying a moo Seine area, the Pays de Caux and the area to the west through the Pays d'Auge as far as the Cotentin Peninsula. Normandy was historically the province of France.

A Channel Islands, although British, are unfeeling & historically the a portion of Normandy that never reverted to the crown of France.

Population

Normandy has Ternion.Two million habitant, sustaining an typical people density of 107 by a square kilometre, good under the French national norm, however rising to 145 for upper Normandy. A primary cities come Rouen (population 385,000, including suburban area), a capital of upper Normandy & erst of the wholly province; Le Havre (247,000); Caen (200,000), the capital of moo Normandy; & Cherbourg (89,000). More towns include:

Alençon Arromanches Avranches Bayeux Coutances Dieppe Doudeville Évreux Falaise Honfleur Lisieux Mortain Saint-Lô Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte Sainte-Mère-Église Villers-Bocage

Geography

A region is bordered along a northern coasts per English Channel. There are granite cliffs in the west and limestone drop in the east. There are as well hanker stretches of beach in the centre of the region. A bocage, patchwork of little fields by using high hedges, average of the american areas driven problems for the invasive forces in the Battle of Normandy. There are meanders of the Seine as it approaches its estuary which form the notable feature of the landscape.

Regions

The Suisse normande (Norman Switzerland), to the south, presents mountainous terrain. The Pays d'Auge is considered average of the rich agrarian landscape of central Normandy. The Roumois The Lieuvin The Cotentin Peninsula La Hague The Pays de Caux The Bessin The Pays d'Ouche The Norman Vexin The Pays de Bray

Rivers

Rivers in Normandy include: the Seine the Orne the Vire the Eure the Risle the Robec the Touques the Couesnon, which traditionally marks a boundary between the Duchy of Brittany and the Dukedom of Normandy.

A Pont de Normandie crossing the estuary of the Seine is look on a exploit of modern engineering.

History

Normandy was a personal of the Normans in the early Middle Ages, the go humans to with success invade England. the Normans were a mixture of the endemic Gauls & of the Viking invaders under the leadership of Rollo (Gange Rolf), who besieged Paris and was given the metropolitan area of Normandy (Treaty of St.-Claire-sur-Epte, 911) in return for defending it against future pirate attacks.

Rollo's descendent William, Duke of Normandy, invaded England within 1066 and became king William I of England. Normandy remained associated sustaining England until 1087, in 1106-1144 and in 1154-1204. Besides watch a Battle of Bouvines in 1214. Normandy was occupied by English forces when you took a Hundred Years' War in 1346-1360 and agawithin in 1415-1450.

Norman families, like that of Tancred of Hauteville played important area in the Crusades and established a kingdom within Sicily and the south of Italy.

Each Wace and Orderic Vitalis are important Norman writers for the history of the province.

When you took World War II, a town of Dieppe was the places of the ill-ill-omened Dieppe Raid by Canadian & British units inside 1942. Late, Normandy was too a places of the Normandy Invasion or Operatiin Overlord that began on June 6, 1944, which day is also known as D-Day. This was a successful invasion of German-occupied France by U.S., British, & American troops. Caen & more Norman towns endured numerous casualties in a fight for the province, which continued until the liberatiin of Le Havre on (September 12).

Channel Islands

Since a Channel Islands own remained firm to a English Crown since a section of Normandy inside 1204, eventually are non section of a UK however like the Dukedom of Normandy, the British monarch (presently Queen Elizabeth II) is toasted as Duke of Normandy. Notwithstanding, she is non repute Duke of Normandy outside her realms since claims by English monarchs to the title were given higher per Treaty of Paris of 1259. In addition, a rights of succession thereto title come subject to Salic Law, which does not leave female inheritance of the ducal title.

Culture

Languages

A Norman language, a regional language, is spoken by a minority of the people, especially in the Cotentin peninsula in the far West & in the Pays first state Caux in the East. Numerous toponym indicate a influence of this Norse-influenced oïl language; for example -bec (stream), -fleur (flow of any stream), -hou (island), -baby (homestead).

Arts
Architecture
Architecturally, Norman cathedrals, abbeys (like a Abbey of Bec) and castles characterise a previous Dukedom within how else that mirrors a similar pattern of Norman architecture in England following a Norman Conquest of 1066.

Farm architecture within upper Normandy is typified by half-timbered buildings that also recall vulgar English architecture, although the domestic enclosures of the thomas further harshly landscaped Pays diamond state Caux come a more idiosyncratic response to socio-economic & climatical imperatives. Tremendously urban architectural heritage was destroyed withinside a period of a Battle of Normandy in 1944 - post-war urban reconstruction, like in Le Havre & Saint-Lô, can be said to demonstrate two the virtues & vices of modernist and brutalist trends of the 1950s & Sixties.

Vernacular architecture in lower Normandy takes its form from either granite, the predominant local building lesson. A Channel Islands besides part this influence - Chausey was for many years the source of quarried granite, including that utilized for the construction of Mont Saint Michel.

Literature

Writers in the French language connected with Normandy include:

Alphonse Allais Olivier Basselin Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly Jean Bertaut François le Metel de Boisrobert Pierre Corneille Casimir Delavigne Octave Feuillet Gustave Flaubert André Gide Rémy de Gourmont François de Malherbe Guy de Maupassant André Maurois Jack Quesnot Monnier Jacques Prévert Marcel Proust Raymond Queneau Jean Rotrou

Watch besides Anglo-Norman literature, Gesta Normannorum Ducum

Painting

From either a 1860s, plein-air painters, world health organization worked outside a studio, were attracted to Normandy per ease of railway access from either Paris. Claude Monet's waterlily garden at Giverny is one of the virtually all popular holidaymaker attractions in the region. Eugène Boudin's paintings of fashionable seaside scenes are besides average. Rouen Cathedral by Claude Monet Artists Norman by birth include:

Nicolas Poussin Jean-François Millet Marcel Duchamp Fernand Léger André Breton Raoul Dufy Théodore Géricault Jean Dubuffet Georges de Scudéry Madeleine de Scudéry Pierre Toutain Dorbec

Music

Erik Satie, Daniel Auber, Arthur Honegger and Marcel Dupré, composers, were born in Normandy.

Design

Christian Dior, fashion designer, was innate inside Granville.

Religion

A cathedrals of Normandy have exerted influence down the centuries within matters of each faith & politics. Mont Saint Michel is a historic pilgrimage site. A influence of Celtic Christianity can still exist as encountered in the Cotentin.

Numbers of saints have been revered in Normandy down the centuries, including: Thérèse de Lisieux whose cult in Lisieux occurs as focus for religious devotion Joan of Arc who was martyred in Rouen, & world health organization is especially remembered in this city Helier and Samson of Dol who are evangelizers of the Channel Islands Saint Marcouf and Saint Lô who are significant saints inside Lower Normandy St. Aubert who is remembered as the founder of Mont Saint Michel Thomas Becket, an Anglo-Norman whose parents were from Rouen, world health organization was the object of a considerable cult inside mainland Normandy ensuing his martyrdom

Normandy doesn't develop a single typically-agreed patron saint, although this title has been ascribed to Saint Michael, and to Saint Ouen.

Food and drink
Normandy is famed for its rich, rolling countryside, which will bring plentiful pasture for dairy cattle and orchards for apples. A dairy farm green goods of the region is noted: its cheeses come globe noted & include Camembert, Livarot and Pont l'Evêque. Normandy butter is extremely prized, when is Normandy cream, two of which are then lavishly utilized within local gastronomical specialities.

Normandy occurs as major cider-producing region (super little wine is produced). Perry is also produced, however within less important quantities. A apple brandy, of which a best known kind is calvados, is also popular. A mealtime trou normand, or even Norman break, occurs as pause between meal courses where diners partake of the glass of calvados, is however ascertained inside numbers of homes & eating place. Pommeau is an aperitif produced by blending fresh cyder & apple brandy. A second aperitif is the kir normand, a measure of cassis topped higher sustaining cyder. Benedictine is produced in Fécamp.

Apples come likewise utilized within preparation: e.g., moules à la normande come mussels cooked by having apples & cream, bourdelots come apples baked inside pastry, & neighborhood tons on top a province keep around their have variation of apple tart. a classic pastry dish from either the region is Flan Normand a flaky pastry-based variant of the apple tart.

More regional specialities include tripes à la mode de Caen, andouilles, teurgoule (spiced rice pudding) and seafood. Normandy is the virtually all important oyster-cultivating region around France.

Symbols

A traditional provincial flag of Normandy, gules, ii leopards passant or even, is utilized within each modern regions. A historic 3-leopard version (known in the Norman language when les treis cats, "the three cats") is utilized by a select few associations & souls, especially people world health organization trend lines reunion of a regions & ethnic links by using the Channel Islands & England.

A unofficial anthem of the vicinity is the song "Ma Normandie."