the Esch-on-Alzette ( Esch-Uelzecht in Luxembourg) is, after Luxembourg city, the second city of the Luxembourg with 27.244 inhabitants.

History

The Esch-on-Alzette is a city Cosmopolite with the animated past. It is an old industrial town, old bastion of the Sidérurgie.

Of the the Middle Ages to the XXe century .

It is the April 12th 1128, in a bubble of the Pape Honorius II which for the first time the name of “Asch appears”, the first name of what was not going to be long in becoming the Town of the Esch-on-Alzette. The May 16th 1328, Jean the Blind man (Jean 1st of Luxembourg, king de Bohême, 1296-1346) confers the statute of “free city to him”.

Many enemy incursions and big fires follow. In 1677, the fortifications of the city are destroyed on order of Louis XIV and during the French revolution of July 1830, the city becomes again a simple village. Esch is concerned its ashes to become, by Large-Ducal Décret of October 12th, 1841, chief town of the canton of Esch.

The XIXe century is one period ostentation for the industrial development of the “Metropolis of Iron”. It is indeed in the middle of this Siècle that mining with Esch starts, timidly, with exploitations with open sky. This mining will end up becoming the cradle of the city which we know today.

Of the XXe century with today .

The May 29th 1906, the Large-Duke Guillaume confers for the second time the title from city on the Esch-on-Alzette.

During the First World War, the city becomes the general headquarter of the German crown prince, Kronprinz Guillaume of Prussia and is transformed into a gigantic military hospital. During these years, the factories are with the stop.

The May 11th 1940, vis-a-vis in advance of the German troops, the inhabitants leave the city in direction of France. It will be necessary to await the September 10th 1944 to see the disappearance of the occupying army.

If the two decades which make following the 2nd world war see the rise of the city, years 1970 correspond to the decline progressive, but inescapable, of the iron and steel industry. Once more, the city must fight for its survival.

It is with the engagement and the will of the various political officials who followed one another so far that one owes the revival of the Esch-on-Alzette. A permanent challenge, unceasingly with the Diary of the échevinaux colleges, and which will see its Apogée with the future installation of the industrial waste lands.

the Esch-on-Alzette, a city moving

With North-South and East-West crossroads, the discovery of the iron ore and the development of metallurgical industry at the 20th century quickly made of the Esch-on-Alzette a modern city and activates, always in rise. Today, the Esch-on-Alzette offers to its inhabitants and visitors all the facilities and services worthy of a dynamic and evolutionary metropolis, in the middle of Europe in full change. Its constant worry is to combine historical heritage and futuristic visions of a city open to the new challenges.

The Metropolis of Iron celebrates its centenary in 2006 and on this Esch-on-Alzette occasion engaged in a unit of urban and plane great projects of future aiming at developing way citizen and equitable her quality of life, its economy and its cultural and technological radiation.

This sustainable development is expressed at the same time through a recasting of the downtown area, to adapt the city and its facilities to its expansion human, through the Projet Belval-West, complex of resources technological and scientific (seedbed of companies, Faculty of Science), cultural and historical (concert hall Rockhal, information center on the industrial crop, public records, safeguarding of the inheritance of the blast furnaces) and finally through the project Nonnewisen , which aims at integrating a new way of seeing the modern and town dwelling.

the project Belval-West, a pilot project for all the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

Yesterday, today and tomorrow

The history of Luxembourg and in particular that of the Minett , the southern area, is indissociable history of the iron and steel industry. Synonym of growth and wellbeing, the production of Acier marked here of a major print the landscapes, the cities and the population. Its development, at the beginning of last century, made it possible the Grand-Duchy to settle in modernity and to play a part of very first order in the whole of the great European economies. Throughout this industrial adventure, like at the present time, the site of Belval always incarnated the dynamism by its volumes of production but also by its capacities of innovation and its aptitude to integrate the technical evolutions. The transition carefully from the production towards the electric die as of 1994 and the stopping of the blast furnaces are the most recent examples and most symptomatic. To the image of the capacity of anticipation and cohesion which the country offers, this technical evolution made necessary by the economic evolution gave the signal of a new departure for the south and its population.

Through its various districts, the project offers many solutions of flexibility and the necessary diversity which will in the long term make it possible to accommodate more than 5.000 inhabitants and more than 20.000 occupants or users daily. The new urban unit relates to a surface developed of almost 1,3 million m2 on 69 hectares constructible. A significant proportion (30% of surfaces) is reserved for the green areas and public places.

The conditions of its implementation confer to him, a strong potential of development thanks in particular:

• with the respect of the guiding ideas formulated right from the start by the initiators of the project
• to a harmonious insertion in urban fabric of the communes of Esch on the Alzette (second city of the country - 27.000 inhabitants) and of Sanem
• with the active support of the State through an important programme of decentralization of administrative offices and the implementation of an ambitious policy of Higher education developed in the context of the creation of the University of Luxembourg.

Administration

The Burgomaster of the Esch-on-Alzette east, since April 2000, Lydia Mutsch which is also appointed at the Luxembourg Parliament since October 1989.

The Esch-on-Alzette is twinned with Liege (Belgium), Lille (France), Cologne (Germany), Rotterdam (Netherlands) and Turin (Italy)

Culture

The exposure " 100 Escher": along a path of walk connecting the 5 houses with topics to the Park of the Centenary. This exposure takes again the photographs which were carried out by the photographer Raymond Reuter within the framework of the realization of the Calendar of the Centenary. It is about a sociological study made during the year 2005 on the population eschoise, representatives young and less young people, Luxemburgish and immigrants, women and men,…

Each year proceeds there the Fête of Resistance to the Kulturfabrik, an old slaughter-house become arts center, organized by the Amis of the diplomatic World and Attac Luxembourg. This event is organized around debates, conferences, films and concerts.

A new arts center with musical vocation has just been born, Rockhal.

Economy

• Train with Commercial bars (TLM)
• Arcelor Mittal
• Rolling line Wire

Twinnings

Sport

The city has accuelli the arrival of the second phase of the Tour de France 2006.

External bond

• Site of the town hall
• Site on the Town of Esch

Random links:

M78 | Flood (producing) | Galician nationalism | Ringsted | Jean Demessine