Cambrai

The bell tower of the town hall, where Martin and Martine () mark the hours

Coat of arms

Cambrai

Location within Hauts-de-France region

Cambrai

Coordinates: 50°10′36″N 3°14′08″E / 50.1767°N 3.2356°ECoordinates: 50°10′36″N 3°14′08″E / 50.1767°N 3.2356°E

Country

Cambrai-Est and Cambrai-Ouest

Intercommunality

Cambrai

Government

• Mayor (2001–2008)

François-Xavier Villain (DLR)

Area¹

18.12 km² (7.00 sq mi)

Population (1999)²

33,716

• Density

1,900/km² (4,800/sq mi)

Time zone

CET (UTC+1)

• Summer (DST)

CEST (UTC+2)

INSEE/Postal code

59122 / 59400

Elevation

41–101 m (135–331 ft)
(avg. 60 m or 200 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.

Cambrai (French pronunciation: [kɑ̃bʁɛ]; Picard: Kimbré; Dutch: Kamerijk; old spelling Cambray) is a commune in the Nord department and in the Hauts-de-France region of France on the Scheldt river, which is known locally as the Escaut river.

A sub-prefecture of the department, Cambrai is a town which had 32,518 inhabitants in the Census of 2009. It is in the heart of the urban unit of Cambrai () which, with 47,138 inhabitants, ranks as 7th largest of the department. Its urban area (), a more extensive range, included 65,986 inhabitants in 2009. With Lille and the towns of the former Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, it is also part of the Metropolitan area of Lille () which has more than 3.8 million inhabitants.

Towards the end of the Roman Empire, Cambrai replaced Bavay as the "capital" of the land of the Nervii. At the beginning of the Merovingian era, Cambrai became the seat of an immense archdiocese covering all the right bank of the Scheldt and the centre of a small ecclesiastical principality (), roughly coinciding with the shire of Brabant, including the central part of the Low Countries. The bishopric had some limited secular power and depended on the Holy Roman Empire until annexation to France in 1678. Fénelon, nicknamed the "Swan of Cambrai", was the most renowned of the archbishops.

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Wikipedia