Mulhouse

Sister cities

• Givatayim
• Timișoara
• Antwerp
• Kassel
• Chemnitz
• Bergamo
• Sofara
• Walsall
• El Khroub
• Jining

History

In 58 BC a battle took place west of Mulhouse and opposed the Roman army of Julius Caesar by a coalition of Germanic people led by Ariovistus. The first written records of the town date from the twelfth century. It was part of the southern Alsatian county of Sundgau in the Holy Roman Empire. From 1354 to 1515, Mulhouse was part of the Zehnstädtebund, an association of ten Free Imperial Cities in Alsace. The city joined the Swiss Confederation as an associate in 1515 and was therefore not annexed by France in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 like the rest of the Sundgau. An enclave in Alsace, it was a free and independent Calvinist republic, known as Stadtrepublik Mülhausen, associated with the Swiss Confederation until, after a vote by its citizens on 4 January 1798, it became a part of France in the Treaty of Mulhouse signed on 28 January 1798, during the Directory period of the French Revolution. The first textile printing works in Mulhouse were established in 1746 by Samuel Koechlin, Jean-Jacques Schmaltzer, Jean-Henri Dolfus and Jean-Jacques Feer. The textile printing works in the city industrialized in the 19th century and the Alsace region became a global leader in the manufacturing and marketing of printed fabric. Art and craft printed textiles were sold alongside textiles that had been finished in a complex industrial printing process. André Koechlin (1789–1875) built machinery and started making railroad equipment in 1842. The firm in 1839 already employed 1,800 people. It was one of the six large French locomotive constructors until the merger with Elsässische Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Grafenstaden in 1872, when the company became Société Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques. After the Prussian victory in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), Mulhouse was…

Geography

Two rivers run through Mulhouse, the Doller and the Ill, both tributaries of the Rhine. Mulhouse is approximately from Strasbourg and Zürich; it is from Milan and about from Frankfurt. It is close to Basel, Switzerland and Freiburg, Germany. It shares the EuroAirport international airport with these two cities. Medieval Mulhouse consists essentially of a lower and an upper town. *The lower town was formerly the inner city district of merchants and craftsmen. It developed around the Place de la Réunion (which commemorates its reunion with France). Nowadays this area is pedestrianised. *The upper town developed from the eighteenth century on. Previously, several monastic orders were established there, notably the Franciscans, Augustinians, Poor Clares and Knights of Malta. *The Nouveau Quartier (New District) is the best example of urban planning in Mulhouse, and was developed from 1826 on, after the town walls had been torn down (as they were in many towns in France). It is focused around the Place de la République. Its network of streets and its triangular shape are a good demonstration of the town's desire for a planned layout. The planning was undertaken by the architects G. Stolz and Félix Fries. This inner city district was occupied by rich families and the owners of local industries, who tended to be liberal and republican in their opinions. *The Rebberg district consists of grand houses inspired by the colonnaded residences of Louisiana cotton planters. Originally, this was the town's vineyard (the word Rebe meaning vine in German). The houses here were built as terraces in the English style, a result of the town's close relationship with Manchester, where the sons of industrialists were often sent to study. Mulhouse's climate is temperate oceanic (Köppen:…

Most-observed species

• Great Tit

  Parus major Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  4,905
• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  4,577
• Eurasian Blue Tit

  Cyanistes caeruleus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  4,234
• Common Chaffinch

  Fringilla coelebs Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  4,143
• European Robin

  Erithacus rubecula (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  3,501
• Carrion Crow

  Corvus corone Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  3,340
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  2,921
• Great Spotted Woodpecker

  Dendrocopos major (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  2,676

Most recent

• M 3.5 — 2024-06-27
  1 km SSW of Todtmoos, Germany
• M 4.4 — 2023-03-22
  1 km NW of Pont-de-Roide, France
• M 3.9 — 2022-09-10
  1 km WSW of Zimmersheim, France
• M 4.1 — 2021-12-24
  2 km WSW of Blamont, France
• M 3.1 — 2018-05-04
  2 km W of Schliengen, Germany
• M 3.6 — 2009-05-05
  2 km NNW of Steinen, Germany