Straßburg / Elsass (F)

Strasbourg is a city in Alsace, a region in eastern France on the border with Germany.

The city is the capital and thus the seat of the regional council and the regional prefect of the Grand Est region as well as the seat of the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin department. The prefecture also manages the Strasbourg arrondissement, which consists of 33 municipalities. With 280,966 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017) in the urban area and over 785,000 inhabitants in the agglomeration on French soil, Strasbourg is by far the largest city in the Grand Est.

Together with Basel (Bank for International Settlements), Geneva (ICRC and European headquarters of the United Nations) and New York City (global headquarters of the United Nations), Strasbourg is one of the few cities in the world that is home to one of the world’s most important international organizations but without being the capital of a country. Strasbourg is the seat of numerous European institutions, including the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, the European Court of Human Rights, the European Ombudsman and the Eurocorps. Because of this, Strasbourg sees itself as the capital of Europe.

Parts of the city center, the medieval old town on the Grande-Île and the new town are under the title Strasbourg: from the Grande-Île to the new town, a European urban scenery UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Source: Wikipedia)