Mulhouse

Mulhouse is a commune with a population of 108,312 in 2019.^[5] This commune is part of an urban unit also named Mulhouse with 247,065 inhabitants in 2018.^[3]

Additionally Mulhouse commune is the principal commune of the 39 communes which make up the communauté d'agglomération of Mulhouse Alsace Agglomération (m2A, population 280,000 in 2020).^[6]

Mulhouse commune is a subprefecture, the administrative centre of the Arrondissement of Mulhouse. It is one of the most populated sub-prefectures in France.

History

In 58 BC a battle took place west of Mulhouse and opposed the Roman army of

Starting in the middle of the eighteenth century, the Koechlin family pioneered cotton cloth manufacturing; Mulhouse became one of France's leading textile centers in the nineteenth century. André Koechlin (1789–1875) built machinery and started making railroad equipment in 1842. The firm in 1839 already employed 1,800 people. It was one of the six large French locomotive constructors until the merger with Elsässische Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Grafenstaden in 1872, when the company became Société Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques.^[7]

After the Prussian victory in the

The town's development was stimulated first by the expansion of the textile industry and tanning, and subsequently by chemical and Engineering industries from the mid 18th century. Mulhouse was for a long time called the French Manchester. Consequently, the town has enduring links with Louisiana, from which it imported cotton, and also with the Levant. The town's history also explains why its centre is relatively small.

Geography

Two rivers run through Mulhouse, the

• The lower town was formerly the inner city district of merchants and craftsmen. It developed around the Place de la Réunion (which commemorates its reunion with France). Nowadays this area is pedestrianised.
• The upper town developed from the eighteenth century on. Previously, several
  Franciscans, Augustinians, Poor Clares and Knights of Malta
  .
• The Nouveau Quartier (New District) is the best example of
  town walls had been torn down (as they were in many towns in France). It is focused around the Place de la République. Its network of streets and its triangular shape are a good demonstration of the town's desire for a planned layout. The planning was undertaken by the architects G. Stolz and Félix Fries
  . This inner city district was occupied by rich families and the owners of local industries, who tended to be liberal and republican in their opinions.
• The Rebberg district consists of grand houses inspired by the colonnaded residences of Louisiana cotton planters. Originally, this was the town's vineyard (the word Rebe meaning vine in German). The houses here were built as terraces in the English style, a result of the town's close relationship with Manchester, where the sons of industrialists were often sent to study.

Climate

Mulhouse's climate is temperate oceanic (Köppen: Cfb), but its location further away from the ocean gives the city colder winters with some snow, and often hot and humid summers, in comparison with the rest of France.

Comparison of local Meteorological data with other cities in France^[11]

Town	Sunshine (hours/yr)	Rain (mm/yr)	Snow (days/yr)	Storm (days/yr)	Fog (days/yr)
National average	1,973	770	14	22	40
Mulhouse	1,783.8	772.1	32.5	33.2	54.9[12]
Paris	1,661	637	12	18	10
Nice	2,724	767	1	29	1
Strasbourg	1,693	665	29	29	56
Brest	1,605	1,211	7	12	75

Population

The population data in the table and graph below refer to the commune of Mulhouse proper, in its geography at the given years. The commune of Mulhouse absorbed the former commune of Dornach in 1914 and Bourtzwiller in 1947.^[13]

Historical population

Year Pop. ±% p.a. 1793 3,763 —     1800 3,879 +0.43% 1806 3,950 +0.30% 1821 3,006 −1.80% 1831 3,314 +0.98% 1836 3,546 +1.36% 1841 3,718 +0.95% 1846 3,620 −0.53% 1851 3,810 +1.03% 1856 4,311 +2.50% 1861 6,871 +9.77% 1866 9,235 +6.09% 1871 12,295 +5.89% 1875 13,607 +2.57% 1880 18,693 +6.56% 1885 21,541 +2.88% 1890 23,986 +2.17% 1895 27,087 +2.46%	Year Pop. ±% p.a. 1900 31,773 +3.24% 1905 35,904 +2.47% 1910 43,217 +3.78% 1921 51,026 +1.52% 1926 58,521 +2.78% 1931 70,450 +3.78% 1936 71,803 +0.38% 1946 69,838 −0.28% 1954 76,252 +1.10% 1962 92,207 +2.40% 1968 95,698 +0.62% 1975 96,587 +0.13% 1982 93,368 −0.48% 1990 94,754 +0.18% 1999 90,674 −0.49% 2007 102,097 +1.49% 2012 103,520 +0.28% 2017 109,897 +1.20%
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.
Source: EHESS[13] and INSEE (1968-2017)[14]

Main sights

• Hôtel de Ville (1552). The town hall was built in 1553 in the
  Montaigne described it as a "palais magnifique et tout doré" ("splendid golden palace") in 1580. It is known for its trompe-l'œil paintings, and its pictures of allegories
  representing the vices and virtues.
• Workers' quarter (mid 19th century), inspired workers' quarters in many other industrial towns.[15]
• Place de la Bourse and the building of the Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, in the Nouveau Quartier (19th century)
• Cité de l'Automobile (featuring the Schlumpf collection)
• Cité du Train successor to Musée Français du Chemin de Fer (French National Railway Museum)
• Museum of Electricity (Electropolis)
• Musée des Beaux-Arts (Fine Arts Museum)
• Musée historique (History Museum, located in the Hôtel de Ville
• Museum of Printed Textiles (Musée de l'impression sur étoffes)
• The
  Parc Zoologique et Botanique de Mulhouse (botanical garden and zoo
  )
• Saint-Steffen Calvinist temple (1859–1869), by Jean-Baptiste Schacre
• Miscellaneous
  Milhouse van Houten from The Simpsons as his name is pronounced similarly to Mulhouse in the French-dubbed version
  .

As early as the mid-19th century, Mulhouse was known as "the industrial capital of Alsace", the "city with a hundred chimneys" (cité aux cent cheminées) and "the French Manchester".^[15]

• Peugeot's Mulhouse factory
  is the largest employer in Alsace)
• Chemical industry (ICMD)
• Electronics (Clemessy)
• Engineering (SACM – Wärtsilä)

Between 1909 and 1914 there was an aircraft manufacturer, Aviatik, in Mulhouse.^[16]

Education

The École nationale supérieure de chimie de Mulhouse, the first school of Chemistry in France, is located in the city.^[17]

Transport

Air

Mulhouse is served by

Rail

Regional services connect Mulhouse to Colmar, Strasbourg, Basel, Belfort, Kruth and Freiburg im Breisgau.

Urban transport

Transport within Mulhouse is provided by Soléa and comprises a network of buses together with the city's tram network, which opened on 13 May 2006. The tramway now consists of three tram lines and one tram-train line.

• Line 2 from Nouveau Bassin to Coteaux
• Line 1 from
  Gare Centrale
  to Châtaignier
• Line 3 from
  Gare Centrale to Lutterbach
• Tram-train line from
  Gare Centrale to Thann
  via Lutterbach

Motorway A36 is the main axis connecting the city with the west of the country, to cities such as Dijon, Paris and Lyon. The A35 is the main north–south axis, connecting cities such as Strasbourg and Basel.

Sports

Mulhouse is one of the nation's hubs for women's volleyball. ASPTT Mulhouse won multiple titles at the National level. The team plays its home games at the Palais des Sports.

People

Mulhouse was the birthplace of:

• Maurice Achener (1881–1963), French illustrator, painter, and print maker
• lineographer
  and mathematician
• Serge Blenner [de] (born 1955), composer and synthesist
• Bernard Bloch (born 1949), actor and director
• Jean Brenner (1937–2009), painter
• T-4 Euthanasia Program
  , executed for war crimes
• video game designer, writer and musician. Born in Mulhouse, Cage was the first game developer to receive the Legion of Honour,^[18] the highest decoration granted in France.^[19]
• Pierre Chambon (born 1931), biologist
• Cléopatre Darleux (born 1989), handball goalkeeper
• Mireille Delunsch (born 1962), soprano
• Tom Dillmann (born 1989), racing driver
• Artur Dinter (1876–1948), writer and Nazi politician
• Dorian Diring (born 1992), footballer
• carcinologist
• Jean Dollfus (1800–1887), French industrialist
• Jean Dorst (1924–2001), ornithologist
• French military officer best known for being the focus of the Dreyfus affair
• Huguette Dreyfus (1928–2016), harpsichordist
• Léon Ehrhart (1854–1875), composer
• Yann Ehrlacher (born 1996), racing driver
• Nusch Éluard (1906–1946), performer, model and surrealist artist
• François Florent (born François Eichholtzer, 1937), actor, founder of the Cours Florent
• Georges Friedel (1865–1933), mineralogist, son of Charles Friedel
• Charles Frédéric Girard (1822–1895), biologist specializing on ichthyology and herpetology
• Pierre Haffner (1718–1760), film critic
• Jean-Gaspard Heilmann (1718–1760), painter
• Jean-Jacques Heilmann [fr] (1822–1859), photographer
• Friedrich Janz [de] (1898–1964), diplomat
• Daniel Jelensperger (1799–1831), musicologist
• Katia and Maurice Krafft, volcanologists
• Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–1777), mathematician, physicist and astronomer
• Joffrey Lauvergne (born 1991), basketball player
• Friedrich Wilhelm Levi (1888–1966), mathematician
• François Loeser (born 1958), mathematician
• clarinetist
• Hervé Milazzo (born 1975), professional footballer
• Véronique North-Minca (born 1953), diplomat
• handball
  goalkeeper
• Marc Pfertzel (born 1981), football player
• Rémy Pflimlin (1954–2016), CEO of France Télévisions from 2010 to 2015^[20]
• Pierre Probst (1913–2007), comic and children book artist
• Napoléon Henri Reber (1807–1880), composer
• John Loretz (1840–1908), organist and composer
• French Air Force pilot in World War II
• Daniel Roth (born 1942), organist, composer and pedagogue
• Franz Eugen Schlachter (1859–1911), revivalist preacher, classical scholar, and translator of the Schlachter Bible
• Christiane Scrivener (born 1925), EU-Commissioner
• Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Strasbourg and later Princeton University
• Françoise Urban-Menninger [fr] (born 1953), writer
• Tiffany & Co
• René Schützenberger (1860–1916), painter
• Jules Siegfried born Mulhouse in 1837, industrialist and politician, French Minister of Commerce 1892-3
• Rémy Stricker (1936–2019), musicologist
• Frank Ténot (1925–2004), press agent, pataphysician and jazz critic
• Philippe Tondre (born 1989), oboist
• Thomas Trauttmann (born 1991), basketball player
• Vitaa (born 1983), singer
• Pierre Weiss (1865–1940), physicist
• Alfred Werner (1866–1919), Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1913
• Jules Auguste Wiernsberger (1857–1925), composer and conductor
• Paul Wolff [de] (1887–1951), photographer
• Robert Wyler (1900–1971), film producer
• William Wyler (1902–1981), award-winning motion picture director
• Jean-Marc Savelli (born at Mulhouse in 1955), a virtuoso concert pianist
• Antar Yahia (born 1982), football player
• Georges Zipélius (1808–1890), illustrator

Other residents include:

• Adolphe Braun (1812–1877), photographer
• Alfred de Glehn (1848–1936), designer of steam locomotives
• Armando Thiriet Koenig (1882–1956), industrial engineer, Director of AEG Madrid in 1919, established an AEG subsidiary in Seville in the early 1920s

Twin towns—sister cities

Mulhouse is

References