A medium-sized town by the banks of the riverCher with somelight industry and an area offorestry andfarming to the north. It is situated some 33 kilometres (21 miles) northwest ofBourges, at the junction of the D2020, D2076 and the D918 roads.
Motorways encircle the town on three sides: theA85 andA71 on the north and east and theA20 on the north and west. Railways reached Vierzon in 1847 and the centralSNCF hubVierzon-Ville station, serving local and nation rail traffic, has been developed here ever since.
Little evidence remains of any pre-Roman occupation, and the Romans themselves didn't leave much trace of their occupation. Not until 926, when aBenedictinemonastery was built (on the site of the current Town Hall) are there any records. The monks came from the abbey of Deuvre, atSaint-Georges-sur-la-Prée, after the abbey was sacked by the Normans in 903. They brought with them the relics of St. Perpetua. These relics were again transferred to the church of Notre-Dame de Vierzon in 1807, where they remain today.
Also in the 10th century, theNormans built a castle atop afeudalmotte. They became theseigneurs of Vierzon and the city developed within the western ramparts of the castle.
Vierzon suffered during thewars of religion, but remained Catholic. TheFrench Revolution of 1789 saw no major shocks except that the parish of Vierzon was divided into two communes: the urban part and the rural (Vierzon-Village), at the request of the rural inhabitants of the parish. In 1887, the part of town on the southern bank of the river was split into Vierzon-Bourgneuf. In 1937, following a public inquiry and a prefectoral decision, the four municipalities were united as one commune.
Vierzon has not been too troubled by more recent wars. In 1870-1871, a vanguard ofUhlan soldiers marched through the city but withdrew quickly. If Vierzon was spared by theFirst World War, it was sorely tried duringWorld War II. The Cher river was the border that divided the city into two, the south of the city being in the"Free" French zone whilst the north was in theGerman-occupied area. In July 1944, a massiveAllied bombardment destroyed a large portion of the city.
From the late 18th century until the middle of the twentieth century, the town became industrialised. Iron and steel farming tools were produced here, then glasswork and ceramics and later, agricultural machinery, notably tractors. With the demise of many factories in the town during the 1970s and 1980s, the unemployment rate was very high. This has since been reduced to the national average.
The population data in the table and graph below refer to the commune of Vierzon proper, in its geography at the given years. The commune of Vierzon absorbed the former communes of Vierzon-Village, Vierzon-Bourgneuf and Vierzon-Forges in 1937.[3]
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