| Tours
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coordinates: 47°23'37?N, 0°41'21?E
Commune of Tours
Town hall, Victor Laloux, architect (1896-1904)
Location
Coordinates
47°23'37?N, 0°41'21?E
Administration
Country
France
Region
Centre
Department
Indre-et-Loire
(Pr?fecture)
Arrondissement
Tours
Canton
Chief town of 7 cantons
Intercommunality
Communaut?
d'agglom?ration
Tours Plus
Mayor
Jean Germain
(2001-2008)
Statistics
Elevation
44 m–109 m
Land area?
34.36 km?
Population?
(est. 2006)
142 000
- Density
4,132/km? (2006)
Miscellaneous
INSEE/Postal code
37261/ 37000, 37100, 37200
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km? (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
2 Population sans doubles comptes: single count of residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel).

Tours is a city in France, the pr?fecture (capital city) of the Indre-et-Loire d?partement, on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orl?ans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the perfection of its local spoken French, and for the famous Battle of Tours in 732. It is also the site of the cycling race Paris-Tours. Tours is the largest city in the Centre region of France, although it is not the regional capital, which resides in its second-largest city of Orl?ans. In 2006, the city itself had 142,000 inhabitants and the metropolitan area had 297,631.


Tours Cathedral: 15th century Flamboyante Gothic west front with Renaissance pinnacles, 1547.
The U.S. sister cities of Tours are Springfield, Missouri (1984) and Minneapolis (1991).
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