Rennes

Rennes

(rĕn), city (1990 pop. 203,533), capital of Ille-et-Vilaine dept., NW France, at the junction of the Vilaine and Ille rivers. Rennes's many industrial products include textiles, leather goods, machinery, automobiles, electronic equipment, and petroleum. Rennes was an important Gallo-Roman town. In the 10th cent. it became the capital of the Breton county of Rennes and, in 1196, under the Angevin dukes, of Brittany. Under the ancien régime it was the seat of the provincial Breton estates, the powerful parlement of Rennes, and several courts of justice. The town was ravaged by the Norsemen and in the Hundred Years War and was swept by a fire in 1720. The Univ. of Rennes was founded in 1735. The National School of Public Health is in Rennes. General Boulanger was born in the city.

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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Rennes

 

a city in northwestern France, in Brittany; capital of the Ille-et-Vilaine Department. Population, 189,000 (1968). Rennes, a major railroad and highway junction, is linked by the Ille-Rance Canal with the Gulf of St. Malo of the English Channel. It has a machine-building industry, including the production of automobiles and agricultural machines, as well as electrical-engineering, textile, clothing, food, and printing industries. There is a university in the city.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

Rennes

a city in NW France: the ancient capital of Brittany. Pop.: 206 229 (1999)

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005