Briey

Coat of arms

Briey

Location within Grand Est region

Briey

Coordinates: 49°14′58″N 5°56′25″E / 49.2494°N 5.9403°ECoordinates: 49°14′58″N 5°56′25″E / 49.2494°N 5.9403°E

Country

Pays de Briey

Area¹

27.13 km² (10.47 sq mi)

Population (2009)²

5,464

• Density

200/km² (520/sq mi)

Time zone

CET (UTC+1)

• Summer (DST)

CEST (UTC+2)

INSEE/Postal code

54099 /54150

Elevation

200–300 m (660–980 ft)
(avg. 240 m or 790 ft)

¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

²Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

Briey (French pronunciation: [bʁijɛ]) is a former commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in northeastern France. On 1 January 2017, it was merged into the new commune Val de Briey.

It is located above and in a steep section of the valley of the little River Woigot, some thirty kilometres to the west of the autoroute that connects Metz with Luxembourg. The town itself had a gently declining population through much of the twentieth century, but the level has recently recovered to around 5,000.

Briey forms a part of an extensive grouping of once heavily industrialised towns that also includes Jœuf and Homécourt, along with Hagondange, Amnéville and Rombas in the adjacent department.

The town is arranged into four principal quarters, and traversed by the Woigot (itself a tributary of the Orne). North of the river, Briey-Haut (Upper Briey), the area centred on the former medieval citadel, stretches out towards the villages of Mance and Moutier, and overhangs Briey-Bas (Lower Briey), which occupies the banks of the Woigot. The steeply angled “grand-rue” (“Main Street”) connects the two areas of the town, which elsewhere are separated by a cliff-face garden. South of the valley is Briey-les-Hauts, another “high town”, facing the villages of Lantéfontaine and Valleroy. Beyond Briey-Haut, the fourth quarter is Briey-en-Forêt, a 1960s development dominated by Le Corbusier’s “Cité Radieuse”, a substantial apartment block, which displays an architectural assertiveness characteristic of its time: the Cité Radieuse has frequently struggled to attract residents, triggering aesthetic and political controversy since first it emerged from the surrounding woodland.

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Wikipedia