Strasbourg

Strasbourg is a city in France. Germany is very close by.

People from many countries in Europe come here to meet and make decisions together.

Strasbourg is a city in the northeast of France, in the region of Alsace. Since 2016 it has been the capital of a larger region called Grand Est. The encyclopedia Universalis calls it a meeting point between the Latin and Germanic worlds.

The Council of Europe and the European Parliament both meet in Strasbourg. France's statistics office, INSEE, counted 293,771 people in the city in its 2023 census, up from 274,394 in 2012.

Universalis describes Strasbourg as the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin, capital of the Alsace region until 2015 and of the Grand Est region created in 2016, and one of the capitals of the European Union, as the home of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament.

INSEE's census series for the commune shows 249,396 people in 1968, 274,394 in 2012 and 293,771 in 2023, with an average density of 3,753.8 people per km² (geography of 1 January 2026).

Strasbourg's cathedral is made of pink stone. Its pointed spire reaches high into the sky.

Inside, a special clock has moving figures.

Strasbourg's cathedral is built of pink sandstone from the Vosges Mountains, and it took nearly three centuries of work to finish, the city's tourism office says. Its spire, finished in 1439, is 142 meters high. Its round rose window is 14 meters across.

Inside stands an astronomical clock with a calendar and a dial that shows the movements of the planets. Moving figures put on a show from Monday to Saturday. Visitors can also climb to a platform 66 meters up, beside the cathedral's copper roofs.

UNESCO calls the cathedral a major masterpiece of Gothic art, influenced by the Romanesque art of the East and the Gothic of the kingdom of France, with a spire inspired by Prague; it has been a protected historic monument since 1862. Universalis credits Erwin of Steinbach with embellishing the façade in 1284 and Johann Hültz with finishing the 142 m spire in 1439.

The tourism office describes the pink Vosges sandstone, the 14 m rose window, the astronomical clock with its perpetual calendar, astrolabe and automaton show, and the 66 m platform, whose guardhouse keeps two 15th-century treadwheel cranes once used to hoist stones.

Strasbourg has trams that glide along rails in the streets. One tram even goes to a town in Germany!

Lots of people ride bikes here too.

Strasbourg's tram opened in 1994. UrbanRail lists six lines and about 52 kilometers of track. Since 2017 a tram line has run across the border to the town of Kehl in Germany.

The tourism office counts 600 kilometers of bicycle paths across the urban area. In the Petite France district, a small swing bridge turns aside to let tour boats pass, so people on foot sometimes have to wait.

UrbanRail gives the tramway's opening as 1994, with about 52 km and six lines; the line to Kehl Bahnhof opened on 29 April 2017 and reached Kehl Rathaus on 23 November 2018, and line F was extended to Wolfisheim on 15 November 2025. UNESCO notes that since 1989 the tram has been introduced together with new pedestrian streets and a transport plan that encourages walking and cycling.

The tourism office reports 600 km of bike paths and calls Strasbourg the most bike-friendly city in France. In the Petite France, the Pont du Faisan footbridge pivots to let tour boats through.

In one old part of Strasbourg, by the river, there was once a street of tanners, who made leather.

Their houses have wooden beams on the outside.

In the Petite France district, mills, dams and locks can still be seen on the river. The river Ill splits into five arms here, and half-timbered houses, with their wooden frames showing, line the water. On one old street, the houses have open-sided roofs that tanners used for drying animal skins.

At the Covered Bridges, three high, massive guard towers survive from the medieval city wall. Nearby, the Vauban Dam, with 13 arches, was built in the reign of Louis XIV to strengthen the city's defenses.

The tourism office describes the Petite France as spread over a delta formed by five arms of the Ill. On Rue du Bain-aux-Plantes, the former tanners' street, the half-timbered houses have an extra, largely open roof designed for drying skins; mills, dams and locks can be seen from the two-arched Saint-Martin Bridge.

The Covered Bridges keep three massive guard towers from the medieval wall. The Vauban Dam, with 13 arches, was built in Louis XIV's reign by Marshal Vauban to reinforce the city's defenses: when closed, it could flood the land south of the city.