Département: Somme
Amiens, lying 130km/80mi north of Paris on the left bank of the Somme, here divided into a number of branches, is the old capital of Picardy and now the chief town of that region and of the département of Somme, the see of a bishop and a university town. Situated at the intersection
of trunk roads linking Paris with northern France, Britain, the Benelux states and Germany, Amiens is a busy town and popular tourist center, rebuilt after suffering heavy damage during the Second World War, which fortunately spared its magnificent cathedral. Amiens has long been famed for its linen, wool, cotton and jute industries.
As Samarobriva ("bridge on the Somme") Amiens was the chief town of a Celtic tribe, the Ambiani, until their conquest by Caesar. Under the Romans it flourished, thanks to its situation on the Roman road to the north. The town was Christianized by St Firmin (Firminus) in the fourth century, and the existence of a bishopric is recorded in 511. In the ninth century Norman raids wrought great devastation. At the end of the 12th C the county of Amiens became subject to the French crown. As a fortified town defending the approach to Paris from the north Amiens was the scene of numerous conflicts with the house of Burgundy and later with the Spaniards. In 1802 the treaty which brought a temporary peace in the Napoleonic wars was signed in Amiens.
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