Besançon (French and Arpitan: [bəzɑ̃ˈsɔ̃]; archaic German: Bisanz), is the capital and principal city of the region of Franche-Comté in eastern France. It had a population of about 220,000 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 1999. Located close to the border with Switzerland, it is the capital of the department of Doubs.
The city sits within an oxbow of the Doubs River (a tributary of the Rhône River); a mountain closes the fourth side. Durin...
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Besançon (French and Arpitan: [bəzɑ̃ˈsɔ̃]; archaic German: Bisanz), is the capital and principal city of the region of Franche-Comté in eastern France. It had a population of about 220,000 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 1999. Located close to the border with Switzerland, it is the capital of the department of Doubs.
The city sits within an oxbow of the Doubs River (a tributary of the Rhône River); a mountain closes the fourth side. During the Bronze Age, c.1500 BCE, tribes of Gauls settled the oxbow.
From the first century BC through the modern era, the town had a significant military importance as to its immediate south the Alps rise abruptly, presenting a significant natural barrier. In historic times the town was first recorded in the journals of Julius Caesar, in his commentaries detailing his conquest of Gaul, as the largest town of the Sequani, a smaller Gaulic tribe; Caesar gave the name of the town as Vesontio (possibly Latinized), and mentions that a wooden palisade...
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