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Home > Travel France > France Destinations > Boulogne sur Mer
Boulogne-sur-Mer
France, officially the French Republic, is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in Western Europe and comprises various overseas islands and territories which are located in other regions. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. At 674,843 square kilometers, France is the world's 40th-largest country after Myanmar. France is a member of The European Union and Paris is the capital of this nation. The sole official language of France is French. Since prehistoric times, France has been a crossroads of trade, migrations, and invasions.
Boulogne-sur-Mer is a city in northern France, in the Pas-de-Calais departement of which it is a sous-prefecture. It is located by the English Channel. Population of the city at the 1999 census was 44,859 inhabitants, whereas the whole metropolitan area had 135,116 inhabitants.
Originally named Gesoriacum and probably also to be identified with Portus Itius, by the fourth century Boulogne was known to the Romans as Bononia and served as the major port connecting the rest of the empire to Britain. The emperor Claudius used this town as his base for the Roman invasion of Britain, in AD 43, and until 296 it was the base of the Classis britannica.
In the middle ages it was the centre of a namesake county. The area was fought over by the French and the English. In 1550, The Peace of Boulogne ended the war of England with Scotland and France. France bought back Boulogne for 400,000 crowns. In the 19th century the Cathedral of Notre Dame was reconstructed by the priest Benoit Haffreingue after he received a call from God to reconstruct the town's ruined basilica.
In the year 1905 the First Esperanto Universal Congress was held in Boulogne-sur-Mer. L. L. Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto, was among the attendees. In the year 2005 there was held a great anniversary meeting with more than 500 attendees. Boulogne-sur-Mer is twinned with Folkestone, United Kingdom, Zweibrucken, Germany since 1959 and Constanta, Romania. As it is often regarded as among the most beautiful parts of France, it is one of the most visited places amongst the most die-hard travelers the world over.
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