Metz

Metz, city, Moselle département, Grand Est région, northeastern France, situated at the confluence of the Moselle and Seille rivers, northwest of Strasbourg and south of the Luxembourg frontier. It was partly rebuilt and its suburbs considerably extended after World War II.

Metz derives its name from the Mediomatrici, a Gallic tribe who made it their capital. It was fortified by the Romans. In the 3rd century it was evangelized, and it became a bishopric in the 4th century. After being plundered by the Huns in the 5th century, the city passed under Frankish domination. In 843, at the partition of the Carolingian empire, Metz became the capital of Lorraine. During the Middle Ages it became a free city within the Holy Roman Empire and grew prosperous.

After the Reformation in the 16th century, when Metz became Protestant and was in danger of being subjected to persecution, Henry II of France (reigned 1547–59), though a Roman Catholic, offered to defend it, successfully withstanding a siege by Charles V, the Holy Roman emperor, in 1552. The French continued to occupy the city, and in 1648, at the Peace of Westphalia, it was ceded to France with Toul and Verdun.

During the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War the French troops retreated into Metz after an indecisive battle. The Germans besieged the city, and 54 days later the French were forced to capitulate. Metz was returned to France after World War I. During World War II it was occupied by the Germans and in 1944 was liberated only after a long battle.

Metz has pleasant promenades along the banks of the Moselle River, which divides into several arms as it flows through the city. The Gothic cathedral of Saint-Étienne was originally formed when two 12th-century churches were joined into a single edifice. The transept and the nave, one of the highest of French Gothic churches, have huge pointed windows. The two towers were begun in the 13th century. The cathedral has remarkable 13th- and 14th-century stained-glass windows, as well as contemporary ones by the painters Marc Chagall and Jacques Villon. The old city gate, the Porte des Allemands (“Gate of the Germans”), built in the 13th and 15th centuries, which was partly destroyed during World War II, has imposing crenellated towers. The museum has a collection of Gallo-Roman antiquities, which are exhibited in the vestiges of Roman baths discovered in 1935. A regional branch of Paris’s Pompidou Centre opened in Metz in 2010. The avante-garde building, which is highlighted by an undulating roof, houses an extensive collection of modern art.

A railway junction on the Nancy-Luxembourg line, Metz is also the centre of a complex road and highway network and is located on the canalized Moselle. The city’s port handles mainly cereals. The regional airport lies to the south of the city. Metz is an important administrative centre, a role reinforced since 1972, when it was chosen as the seat of the Regional Assembly and became the centre of a series of regional organizations. It is also a centre for business, commerce, and higher education. Unlike the nearby steel region, Metz has never been the location of large industrial plants; however, as part of the restructuring of the regional economy, a number of sizable factories were situated on the outer periphery of the city. Pop. (1999) 123,776; (2014 est.) 117,619.