The arrondissement of Valenciennes is an arrondissement of France in the Nord department in the Hauts-de-France region. It has 82 communes. Its population is 350,643 (2021), and its area is 634.8 km (245.1 sq mi).
The arrondissement of Valenciennes is an arrondissement of France in the Nord department in the Hauts-de-France region. It has 82 communes. Its population is 350,643 (2021), and its area is 634.8 km (245.1 sq mi).
The County of Hainaut (/eɪˈnoʊ/ ay-NOH; French: Comté de Hainaut; Dutch: Graafschap Henegouwen; Latin: comitatus hanoniensis), sometimes spelled Hainault, was a territorial lordship within the medieval Holy Roman Empire that straddled the present-day border of Belgium and France. Its most important towns included Mons (Dutch: Bergen), now in Belgium, and Valenciennes, now in France.
The core of the county, named after the river Haine, stretched southeast to include the Avesnois region and southwest to the Selle (Scheldt tributary). In the Middle Ages, its Counts also gained control of part of the original pagus of Brabant to its north and the pagus of Oosterbant to the east, but they did not form part of the old pagus of Hainaut. In modern terms, the original core of Hainaut consisted of the central part of the Belgian province of Hainaut, and the eastern part of the French département of Nord (the arrondissements of Avesnes-sur-Helpe and Valenciennes).
French Hainaut (French: Hainaut français [ɛno fʁɑ̃sɛ]) is one of two areas in France that form the département du Nord, making up its eastern part. It corresponds roughly with the Arrondissement of Avesnes-sur-Helpe (east), the Arrondissement of Cambrai (south-west) and the Arrondissement of Valenciennes (north-west).
Until the 17th century, it was an integral part of the County of Hainaut, ruled by the House of Valois-Burgundy and later by the House of Habsburg. In a series of wars between France and Spain, this southern part of Hainaut was conquered by France, together with the adjacent Cambrésis, or Bishopric of Cambrai, to its south-west, and southern Flanders, which borders the English Channel, to its west. Together, these formed the French province of Flanders which, following the French Revolution, became the new Nord département.
The 6 arrondissements of the Nord department are: