Angers is an industrialized city housing 150,000 people in the city proper and close to 250,000 within the metropolitan area. The city traces its roots to early Roman times. It occupies the slopes on both banks of the Maine, which is spanned by three bridges. The district along the river is famous for its flourishing nurseries and market gardens. With its wide, straight streets; gracious public gardens; and ample, tree-lined boulevards, Angers is one of the more pleasant towns in France. It is well known for its fresh produce and cut flowers.
The famous abbey of St. Aubin has a courtyard with elaborately sculptured arcades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The tower there is also splendid.
Ruins of the old churches of Toussaint (thirteenth century) and Notre-Dame du Ronceray (eleventh century) are also nearby. The ancient hospital of St. Jean (twelfth century) is occupied by an archaeological museum. The Logis Barrault, a mansion built about 1500, houses the public library and the municipal museum, which has a large collection of paintings and sculptures. The mansion also contains the collection of Musée David consisting of works by the sculptor David d'Angers, who was a native of the town. Standing outside the museum is one of his masterpieces, a bronze statue of René of Anjou, a former duke of Anjou who was born in Angers' chateau.
The Hôtel de Pincé or d'Anjou (1523-1530) is the finest of the stone mansions of Angers. There are also many curious wooden houses of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Palais de Justice, the Catholic Institute, a fine theatre, and a hospital with 1500 beds are the more remarkable of the modern buildings of the town. Angers is the seat of a bishopric, dating from the third century; a prefecture; a court of appeal; and a court of assizes (criminal courts). It has a tribunal of first instance, a tribunal of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a chamber of commerce, a branch of the Bank of France, and several learned societies.
The first sign of human presence on the site of Angers is a stone tool dated back to 400,000 BCE (Lower Paleolithic). The earliest known inhabitants were the Andecavi, a Gallic tribe that was overrun by the Romans. The city, while under Roman rule, was called Juliomagus.
Angers was once the capital of the historic province of Anjou. Beginning in the ninth century, the region was controlled by a powerful family of feudal lords. In the twelfth century, it became part of the Angevin empire of the Plantagenet Kings of England. During this time the Hospital of Saint-Jean was built in Angers by King Henry II of England. The edifice still stands to this day, now housing an important museum. In 1204 Angers was conquered by King Philippe II.
The city suffered severely from the invasions of the Normans (in 845 and succeeding years) and the arrival of the English in the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. The Huguenots took it in 1585, and the Vendean royalists were repulsed nearby in 1793. Till the Revolution Angers was the seat of a celebrated university founded in the fourteenth century.
Many of these industries noted in 1911 have since disappeared. Nowadays industry consists of manufacturing lorries (Scania) and computers (Bull, Packard-Bell) as well as research in horticulture.
It has an orchestre ONPL shared with Nantes, a local theatre NTA and a ballet school CNDC.
Along with students from all over the world, Americans from the Universities of Auburn, Notre Dame, Oregon, Clemson, and Kansas come to Angers to spend time in the CIDEF program, immersed in French language and culture. The program provides immersion courses for foreign students. Courses including literature, politics, theology, philosophy, and grammar (and an unofficial slang course!) are all taught in French. Angers is considered an excellent location to learn French because the Angevin accent is said to retain the regal and aristocratic flavor of the royals who holidayed in the Loire Valley for centuries, and is said to be easily understood throughout the francophone world.
Angers' other educational institutions include seminaries, a lycée; a preparatory school of medicine and pharmacy; a university with faculties of theology, law, letters, and science; a higher school of agriculture, training colleges, a school of arts and handicrafts, and a school of fine art. Its education and research institutes are the driving force behind the city's science and technology industries.