STRASBOURG (STRAssBuRc), a town of France, the capital of the department of Bas-Rhin, at the junction of the Ill and the Breusch, 2 m. W. of the Rhine, 88 m. by rail N. from Basle. Pop. (1931) 170,794. The Ill divides into arms forming an island on which the city grew; it was long a strongly fortified place and the removal of the fortifications immediately around the city has given opportunities of large expansion in the last half century. The old city contains the cathedral, or Munster (i Ith to 15th centuries). Part of the crypt dates from Io15; the apse is Transitional; and the nave, finished in 1275, is pure Gothic. The elaborate west facade has a screen of double tracery, numerous sculptures and two towers, the northern with a tall spire. The cathedral has some fine stained glass, a sculptured pulpit and the famous astronomical clock in the south transept ; this contains some fragments of the clock built by the mathema tician, Conrad Dasypodius, in 1574. The Protestant church of St. Thomas is a Gothic building of the 13th and 14th centuries.
The Palais de Rohan or old episcopal palace, built in 1731-41, was used for university purposes from 1872 to 1895 ; it is now the municipal museum of art. Other notable buildings are the Frauenhaus, with some interesting sculptures, and the Hotel du Commerce, the finest Renaissance building in the town. The University of Strasbourg, founded in 1566 and suppressed during the French Revolution as a stronghold of German sentiment, was reopened in 1872 and again as a French institution in 1922.
The chief industries of Strasbourg are tanning, brewing, print ing and the manufacture of metal goods, paper and tobacco. To these must be added the fattening of geese for Strasbourg's cele brated pâté de foie gras.
emperor Julian gained here a decisive victory over the Alamanni, who 5o years later re-conquered the whole of the district. Towards the end of the 5th century the town passed to the Franks, who gave it its present name. The famous "Strassburg oaths" between Charles the Bold and Louis the German were taken here in 842, and in 923, through the homage paid by the duke of Lorraine to the German king Henry I., began the connection of the town with the German kingdom which lasted for over seven centuries. The early history of Strasbourg consists mainly of struggles between the bishop and the citizens. This conflict was finally decided in favour of the citizens by the battle of Oberhausbergen in 1262, and the position of a free imperial city which had been conferred upon Strasbourg by the German king, Philip of Swabia, was not again disputed. In 1332 there was an internal revolution, which admitted the gilds to a share in the government of the city.
In 1381 the city joined the Stadtebund, or league of Swabian towns, and a century later it helped the Swiss confederates at Granson and Nancy. The reformed doctrines were readily ac cepted in Strasbourg about 1523, and the city was skilfully piloted through the ensuing period of religious dissensions by Jacob Sturm von Sturmeck, who secured for it very favourable terms at the end of the war of the league of Schmalkalden. In the Thirty Years' War the town observed a prudent neutrality. In 1681, during a time of peace, it was suddenly seized by Louis XIV., and this unjustifiable action received formal recognition at the Peace of Ryswick in 1697. At the French Revolution the city was deprived of its privileges as a free town. In the war of 187o-71 Strasbourg, with its garrison of 17,00o men, surrendered to the Germans on Sept. 28, 1871. The city and the cathedral suffered considerably from the bombardment.