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Lyon (Municipality, Rhône, France)

by Arnaud Leroy

Presentation of Lyon
Municipal flag of Lyon
Aviron Union Nautique de Lyon (rowing club)

See also:

Presentation of Lyon

Lyon and its very extended suburbs now have more than 1,000,000 of inhabitants, making of Lyon the second largest French city.

Lyon was the capital of Lyonnaise, one of the divisions of the Roman Gaul, and then called Lugdunum. Lug was a Celtic god, and the suffix dun refers to an elevated place or a fortress (it is commmon in place names in France: Châteaudun, Issoudun, Verdun, Verdun-sur-le-Doubs, Dun-les-Places, Dun-sur-Auron etc.).
Lyon is located at the confluency of the Rhône and Saône rivers. There was probably a sanctuary dedicated to the god Lug on the hill of Fourvière, now the place of a XIXth century basilica.
Lyon was christianized in the IInd century and its Archbishop is still known as Primat des Gaules.

Lyon was one of the capitals of the Kingdom of Burgundy in the Vth century, became a free city in 1193 and was definitively incorporated to France in 1307.
The development of silk industry in the XVIth century transformed Lyon in one of the richest city of France. The silk workers (canuts) lived and worked in infamous conditions and two revolts in 1831 and 1834 were severely repressed.
During the Revolution, Lyon remained strongly Royalist and the population was severely punished by the Convention, which slaughtered a lot of people and changed the city name in 1793 to Ville-sans-nom (City-without-name).

The district known as Vieux-Lyon (Old Lyon), a group of ancient houses crowded around the St. John's primatial church and linked together by a dense networks of narrow passages(locally known as traboules) was recently awarded by UNESCO the title of 'World Heritage Site'.

Lyon is the birth place of Guignol (XVIIth century), a famous puppet character, who symbolizes with his fellow Gnafron popular opposition to the authority.
Lyon is also legitimally famous for its traditional restaurants, called bouchons, where you can enjoy the tasty local specialities, such as tablier du sapeur, cervelle du canut or rosette de Lyon.

Ivan Sache, 19 January 2001

Municipal flag of Lyon

The flag of Lyon is a banner of the municipal arms, which are (GASO):

De gueules au lion à la queue contournée d'argent, au chef cousu d'azur chargé de trois fleurs de lys d'or

in English (Brian Timms):

Gules a lion rampant argent armed and langued azure a chief of the third three fleurs de lis or

In the XIIIth century, the merchant guilds revolted against the power of the Archbishop-Count of Lyon. They used on their banners a lion to express their own strength. In 1320, King of France Philippe V le Long forced Archbishop Pierre de Savoie to free Lyon, which was later direcrlty administrated by the King of France, therefore the chief of France on the coat of arms.

The province of Lyonnais was assigned the municipal banner of arms of Lyon.

Ivan Sache, 11 May 2003

Aviron Union Nautique de Lyon

by Ivan Sache

The rowing-club Union Nautique de Lyon was founded on 29 April 1880 by Andre Grange. The club won its first national title in 1893 (eight). In 1975, the club was renamed Aviron Union Nautique de Lyon. It has won more than 30 national since 1974 and was ranked first French men's rowing-club in 1996 and 1999.
Several members of AUNL have won international titles. The most successful of them is Jean-Christophe Rolland, who won the bronze medal in Atlanta and the gold medal in Sydney in double scull. Rolland was also world champion in coxed four in 1993 and double scull in 1997. Every year, the AUNL organizes a rowing festival called La Traversée de Lyon, during which hundreds of rowers row down the river Saône until its confluency with the Rhòne in the center of Lyon.

The burgee of the AUNL dates from the early years of the club. Its design honours Andre Grange's wife, who was American of Scottish origin. The image shown on the AUNL website is bristled with geometrical obstacles, therefore my rendition of the burgee is only tentative and probably erroneous. The burgee has five horizontal red and white stripes converging to the point of the flag. The canton is blue with a white saltire.

Source: AUNL website

Ivan Sache, 25 July 2004