Tourcoing

Tourcoing
Tourcoing
	Town hall Town hall
Flag of Tourcoing; Flag	; Coat of arms
	Tourcoing
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Country	France
Region	Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardy
Department	Nord
Arrondissement	Lille
Intercommunality	Lille Métropole
Government
• Mayor (2014-2020)	Gerald Darmanin
Area1	15.19 km2 (5.86 sq mi)
Population (2012)2	92,707
• Density	6,100/km2 (16,000/sq mi)
INSEE/Postal code	59599 / 59200
	1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. 2 Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

Tourcoing (French pronunciation: [tuʁ.kwɛ̃]) is a city in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Nord.

Tourcoing is part of the urban area of Lille and is a member of the Urban Community of Lille Métropole. Besides that, the city is also a member of the cross-border Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai (metropolitan area), which had 2,155,161 residents in 2008.^[1]^[2] The city is served by the Lille Metro.

Main sights

Church of St Christopher (15th-16th centuries), considered one of the most beautiful Neo-Gothic edifices of Nord. In stone and brickwork, it has an 80-metre (262-foot) high bell tower with more than 80 bells.
Hospice de Havre, founded in 1260. The cloister and the chapel date from the seventeenth century.
Hôtel de ville (1885), in Napoleon III-style.
Jardin botanique de Tourcoing, a botanical garden and arboretum.

History

Place de la Victoire, Tourcoing.

The city was the site of a significant victory for France during the French Revolutionary Wars. Marshal Charles Pichegru and his generals Joseph Souham and Jean Moreau defeated a combined force of British and Austrian troops in the Battle of Tourcoing on 29 Floréal II (18 May 1794).^[3]

Transport

The Gare de Tourcoing is a railway station offering direct connections to Lille and Paris (high speed trains), Kortrijk, Ostend, Ghent and Antwerp. The town was formerly served by the Somain-Halluin railway.

Notable people

Yohan Cabaye, footballer currently playing for Crystal Palace.
Jean-Marc Degraeve, chess grandmaster.
Stéphane Denève, conductor
Brigitte Fossey, actress
Anna Gomis, wrestler
Henri Padou, water polo player and 1924 Olympic gold medallist
Brigitte Lahaie, pornstar
Joseph-Charles Lefèbvre, bishop of Bourges, cardinal, cousin of
Marcel Lefebvre, missionary priest and, later, controversial archbishop, cousin of Joseph-Charles
Mr. Sam, a popular deejay and producer running his own record label since 2008.
Albert Roussel, composer

Guilbert de Lannoy (1545-c. 1601) and his son Jean de Lannoy (1575-c. 1605) were Protestants who r settled in Leiden, Holland. Jean's son, Philip Delano (c. 1603 - c. 1681-82; born Philipe de la Noye or Philipe de Lannoy) was an early emigrant to the Plymouth Colony and progenitor of the prominent Delano family, which counts among its descendants many prominent figures in American history.^[4]

File:Tourcoing.hto3.jpg

Church of St Christopher

International relations

Twin towns – Sister cities

Tourcoing is twinned with:

Berlin, Germany Biella, Italy Bottrop, Germany	Guimarães, Portugal Jastrzębie-Zdrój, Poland Mouscron, Belgium	Mühlhausen, Germany Rochdale, England Veszprém, Hungary