Caen
commune in Calvados, France
Caen (UK: or ; French: [kɑ̃] ; Norman: Kaem) is a city and commune 15 km (9.3 mi) inland from the northwestern coast of France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (as of 2018), while its functional urban area has 470,000, making Caen the second largest urban area in Normandy and the 19th largest in France. It is also the third largest commune in all of Normandy after Le Havre and Rouen.
Caen is located 200 km (120 mi) northwest of Paris, connected to the South of England by the Caen (Ouistreham) to Portsmouth ferry route through the English Channel. Situated a few kilometres from the coast, the landing beaches, the bustling resorts of Deauville and Cabourg, as well as Norman Switzerland and the Pays d'Auge, Caen is often considered the archetype of Normandy.
Caen is known for its historical buildings built during the reign of William the Conqueror, who was buried there, and for the Battle for Caen, heavy fighting that took place in and around Caen during the Battle of Normandy in 1944, destroying much of the city. The city has now preserved the memory by erecting a memorial and a museum dedicated to peace, the Mémorial de Caen.
Etymology
The first references to the name of Caen are found in different acts of the dukes of Normandy: Cadon 1021/1025, Cadumus 1025, Cathim 1026/1027. Year 1070 of the Parker manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers to Caen as Kadum, and year 1086 of the Laud manuscript gives the name as Caþum.
“Caen” enters the record as commune in Calvados, France. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Caen, commune and Calvados can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q41185. VIAF identifies the subject as 155931751. The Library of Congress control number is n80001213. Authority coordinates are 49.181, -0.364. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2018, 1944, 1021 and 1025.
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This entry incorporates text from “Caen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.