University of Caen Normandy

The Château de Caen is a castle in the Norman city of Caen in the Calvados département (Normandy). It has been officially classed as a Monument historique since 1997.

The Battle for Caen (June to August 1944) is the name given to fighting between the British Second Army and the German Panzergruppe West in the Second World War for control of the city of Caen and its vicinity during the larger Battle of Normandy. The battles followed Operation Neptune, the Allied landings on the French coast on 6 June 1944 (D-Day). Caen is about 9 mi (14 km) inland from the Calvados coast astride the Orne River and Caen Canal, at the junction of several roads and railways. The communication links made it an important operational objective for both sides. Caen and the area to its south are flatter and more open than the bocage country in western Normandy. Allied air force commanders wanted the area captured quickly to base more aircraft in France. The British 3rd Infantry Division was to seize Caen on D-Day or to dig in short of the city if the Germans prevented its capture, which would temporarily mask Caen to maintain the Allied threat against it and thwart a potential German counter-attack from the city. Caen, Bayeux and Carentan were not captured by the Allies on D-Day, and for the first week of the invasion, the Allies concentrated on linking the beachheads. British and Canadian forces resumed their attacks in the vicinity of Caen and the suburbs and city centre north of the Orne were captured during Operation Charnwood (8–9 July). The Caen suburbs south of the river were captured by the II Canadian Corps during Operation Atlantic (18–20 July). The Germans had committed most of their panzer divisions in a determined defence of Caen, which made the fighting mutually costly and greatly deprived the Germans of the means to reinforce the west end of the invasion front. In western Normandy the US First Army cut off the Cotentin Peninsula and captured Cherbourg. It then attacked southwards towards Saint-Lô, about 37 mi (60 km) west of Caen and captured the town on 19 July. On 25 July, after weather had caused a delay, the First Army began Operation Cobra on the Saint-Lô–Périers road, which was co-ordinated with the Canadian Operation Spring at Verrières (Bourguébus) ridge, south of Caen. Cobra was a great success and began the collapse of the German position in Normandy. The Allied breakout led to the Battle of the Falaise Pocket (12–21 August), which trapped most of the remnants of the 7th Army and 5th Panzer Army (formerly Panzergruppe West) and opened the way to the Seine and Paris. Caen was destroyed by Allied bombing and the damage from ground combat, which caused many French civilian casualties. After the battle, little of the prewar city remained, and reconstruction of the city took until 1962.

The Normandy Museum (Musée de Normandie) is a public museum in Caen, Normandy, France. It has been housed in the Château de Caen since 1963. In June 1970 the Caen Museum of Fine Arts also moved into the castle, expanding the collection. The founding of the museum goes back to Georges Henri Rivière who wanted to set up a national network of regional museums in France in the 1930s. Soon after the second World War had ended, in the summer of 1945, he was assessing the damage caused to public collections during the war. While passing through Caen he gazed at the ruined city along with Michel de Boüard, professor of history at the University of Caen and Jean Vergnet-Ruiz, inspector general of provincial museums. The idea of the museum was born as the discussions between these men took place. Over time, the collection expanded, and now includes ancient as well as Medieval items. The museum now holds more than 80,000 objects. Since 2016, the museum has exhibited the Treasure of Saint-Germain-de-Varreville, discovered in 2011 and the Treasure of Tourouvre.

The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen is a fine arts museum in the French city of Caen, founded at the start of the 19th century and rebuilt in 1971 within the ducal château.

The arrondissement of Caen is an arrondissement of France in the Calvados department in the Normandy region. It has 201 communes. Its population is 384,540 (2016), and its area is 1,595.7 km2 (616.1 sq mi).

The Synagogue of Caen is a French synagogue located at 46 Avenue de la Libération, in Caen, Calvados, Normandy. The president of the Israelite Cultural Association of Caen (ACI), who own the building, is Nassim Levy.

The jardin des plantes de Caen (French for: 'Garden of the Plants of Caen'), also known as jardin botanique de Caen ('Botanical Garden of Caen') is a botanical garden and arboretum located at 5, place Blot, Caen, Calvados, Normandy, France. Covering 5,000 m², it is open daily. The garden's earliest plants were collected in 1689, and its first catalog published in 1781 (Jardin botanique de Caen by Farin and Demoneuse). It was established on the site of an old stone quarry as a university botanical garden, but in 1803, after the French Revolution, it was extended by 3.5 hectares to become a municipal park. In 1860 two large greenhouses were constructed, and a botanical institute added in 1891, but all were destroyed in World War II. New greenhouses were built in 1988. Today the garden contains more than 8,000 species laid out in two sections. The lower section contains native plants of Normandy (about 1,000 species), a medicinal garden (600 plants), horticultural collections (700 varieties), rockeries (1,500 dwarf specimens), an arboretum of trees and shrubs (500 species), and a greenhouse of about 1,500 exotic species. The upper section is a public park containing remarkable tree specimens including Sophora japonica (1750), Sequoiadendron giganteum (1890), and Cryptomeria japonica (1870). The garden also has a pedagogical role, where gardeners can ask advice to professionals, who are available to answer questions and regularly organize workshops, and is committed on environmental issues. During Spring, they offer ladybug and lacewing eggs to local gardeners, in order to encourage biological gardening and avoiding the use of pesticides,.

The Church of Saint-Pierre (French: Église Saint-Pierre) is a Roman Catholic church located on the Place Saint-Pierre in the centre of Caen in Normandy, northern France. It is dedicated to Saint Peter. Known as Saint-Pierre of Darnetal, Saint-Pierre-sous-Caen, Saint-Pierre-du-Châtel, Saint-Pierre-en-Rive, this church, often mistakenly called by the tourists "the cathedral", as it was the largest religious building of Bourg-le-Roi; special care was therefore given to its development. The construction of the present building took place between the early 13th and the 16th centuries. It was in this church that during the Middle Ages the main public ceremonies took place. For example, when Henri IV abjured the Protestant religion, putting an end to religious wars, it was in St Peter's Church that the Te Deum was sung in the presence of the civil and religious representatives of the whole city. The spire of the church was destroyed on 9 July 1944 by a shell fired at German forces from the Royal Navy battleship HMS Rodney, and has since been rebuilt. The eastern apse of the church was built by Hector Sohier between 1518 and 1545. The interior choir and the exterior apse display an architecture that embodies the transition from Gothic to Renaissance. It ceased to be a church building on November 20, 1793, and became a Temple of Reason, and was from 1793 to 1795 used as a venue for the 'Culte de l'Être supreme', after which it was used for Catholic worship from June 4, 1795, to 1933.Until around the mid-19th century, the eastern end of the church faced onto a canal that was then covered and replaced by a road. Various artists and engravers recorded this relation of the church to the canal; for instance, the Scottish painter David Roberts made several very similar views, one of which (dated to c. 1830) is in Musée des Beaux-Arts in the Château de Caen (Caen Castle).This church Building is the subject of a classification as historical monuments by the list of 1840. Architectural Details

Operation Atlantic (18–21 July 1944) was a Canadian offensive during the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War. The offensive, launched in conjunction with Operation Goodwood by the Second Army, was part of operations to seize the French city of Caen and vicinity from German forces. It was initially successful, with gains made on the flanks of the Orne River near Saint-André-sur-Orne but an attack by the 4th and 6th Canadian Infantry Brigades of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, against strongly defended German positions on Verrières Ridge to the south was a costly failure.

The Church of Old Saint-Sauveur is a former place of worship on the Place Saint-Sauveur in the old town center of Caen, France. Before the French Revolution, the church was a parish and was called just Saint-Sauveur Church. It took its current name in 1802 when the Notre-Dame-de-Froide-Rue church, which became the center of the new parish, was renamed Saint-Sauveur Church in Caen. The church has been classified as a historical monument since 29 June 1951.

Operation Charnwood was an Anglo-Canadian offensive that took place from 8 to 9 July 1944, during the Battle for Caen, part of the larger Operation Overlord (code-name for the Battle of Normandy) in the Second World War. The operation was intended to capture the German-occupied city of Caen (French pronunciation: [kɑ̃]), which was an important objective for the Allies during the opening stages of Overlord. It was also hoped that the attack would forestall the transfer of German armoured units from the Anglo-Canadian sector to the American sector to the west, where an offensive was being prepared. The British and Canadians advanced on a broad front and by the evening of the second day had taken Caen up to the Orne and Odon rivers. Preceded by a controversial bombing raid that destroyed much of the historic Old City of Caen, Operation Charnwood began at dawn on 8 July, with three infantry divisions attacking German positions north of Caen, behind a creeping barrage. Supported by three armoured brigades, the British I Corps made gradual progress against the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend and the 16th Luftwaffe Field Division. By the end of the day the 3rd Canadian Division and the British 3rd Infantry Division and 59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division had cleared the villages in their path and reached the outskirts of the city. Moving into Caen at dawn the following morning, the Allies encountered resistance from remnants of German units who were beginning a withdrawal across the Orne. Carpiquet airfield fell to the Canadians during the early morning and by 18:00, the British and Canadians had linked up along the north bank of the Orne. The remaining bridges were defended or impassable and with German reserves positioned to oppose their crossing, I Corps ended the operation. Operation Charnwood was mutually costly and a tactical success for the Allies. The Germans retired from north of the Orne River but did not stop sending formations to the American front. The Germans established another defensive line along two ridges to the south of the city. The Allies maintained the initiative and began Operation Jupiter the next day and Operation Goodwood and Operation Atlantic a week later, in which the rest of Caen was secured.

The communauté urbaine Caen la Mer is the communauté urbaine, an intercommunal structure, centred on the city of Caen. It is located in the Calvados department, in the Normandy region, northwestern France. It was created in January 2017, replacing the previous Communauté d'agglomération Caen la Mer and two communautés de communes. Its area is 362.9 km2. Its population was 268,470 in 2018, of which 105,512 in Caen proper.