Clermont-Ferrand

City and administrative centre of Puy-de-Dôme département in the Auvergne region of France, situated 140 km/87 mi east of Limoges; population (1999) 137,200. It is a centre for agriculture; the rubber industry here, including the manufacture of car tyres, is the largest in France. The town has over 20 mineral springs and supplies a large amount of the country's bottled water. Other products include chemicals, preserves, foodstuffs, and clothing.

The Gothic cathedral, construction of which began in 1248, contains fine medieval stained glass and frescoes. Pope Urban II ordered the first crusade at a council here in 1095. The philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal was born here in 1623.

History Clermont was the administrative centre of the old Auvergne region. The two towns of which it is composed, Clermont and Montferrand, were united in 1731. Clermont was built around a citadel, called by the Romans Clarus Mons or Clarimontium. The town was a bishopric as early as the 3rd century, and was the meeting-place of seven councils between 535 and 1130. Peter The Hermit preached in the 11th-12th-century Romanesque church of Notre-Dame du Port when Urban II made his first crusade proclamation. In Montferrand there is a medieval town hall and a church (13th-16th centuries) containing notable 17th-century wood carvings. In both parts of Clermont-Ferrand there are remarkable Gothic and Renaissance houses. The university was founded in 1810.