Besançon

Capital of the historic and cultural region of Franche-Comté, Besançon is home to the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté regional council headquarters, and is an important administrative centre in the region. It is also the seat of one of the fifteen French ecclesiastical provinces and one of the two divisions of the French Army.

The city has a population of about 120,000, and is the centre of a metropolitan area of about 285,000 inhabitants, the second in the region in terms of population (after Dijon).

Established in a meander of the river Doubs, the city was already important during the Gallo-Roman era under the name of Vesontio, capital of the Sequani. Its geography and specific history turned it into a military stronghold, a garrison city, a political centre, and a religious capital.

Besançon is the historical capital of watchmaking in France. This has led it to become a centre for innovative companies in the fields of microtechnology, micromechanics, and biomedical engineering. Its university, founded in 1423, has an enrollment of nearly 30,000 students, including around 4,000 trainees from all over the world within its Centre for Applied Linguistics (CLA).