Charleville-Mézières is a commune in northern France, capital of the Ardennes department in the Grand Est region. Charleville-Mézières is located on the banks of the river Meuse.

Country	France
Region	Grand Est
Department	Ardennes
Canton	Charleville-Mézières-1, 2, 3 and 4
Government
Mayor (2020–2026)	Boris Ravignon
Area1	31.44 km2 (12.14 sq mi)
Population (2017-01-01)	46,428
Demonym(s)	French: Carolomacérien
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)

Economy 

• Metallurgy
• Mechanical construction
• Agribusiness
• Tertiary

Charleville-Mézières is the headquarters of the National Agency for Secured Titles .

The main public employers in the city are Manchester Hospital and the Municipality. The city has a branch of the Ardennes Chamber of Commerce and Industry which manages the city aerodrome located in the town of Belval .

Transport

City buses are run by TAC, Transports de l’Agglomération de Charleville-Mézières. The Gare de Charleville-Mézières railway station offers connections to Paris (by TGV), Reims, Lille, Metz and regional destinations.

A river services facing the marina 

If the Meuse is a navigable river allowing a connection with Belgium and the Netherlands , the river traffic of goods really begins in Givet , on the border of France and Belgium , where ambitious projects of modernization of its port are considered.

In Charleville-Mézières, river traffic is now for tourism and pleasure boats, including barges converted into bars, nightclubs or restaurants, are docked on the city’s quays.

Education 

The city has 23 primary schools, 12 school groups (nursery and primary combined), as well as 3 private schools (nursery and primary combined).

As regards the colleges, there are 8 for the public colleges and 2 for the private colleges.

Charleville-Mézières has several high schools:

• Chanzy high school . 
• The Sévigné high school . 
• The François-Bazin high school .
• The Armand Malaise vocational school

Charleville-Mézières, recognized world capital of puppetry with its World Festival of Puppet Theaters , also hosts an important international training and research center in the field of puppetry: the Institut international de la marionnette. Part of the Institute, the National School of Puppetry Arts (ESNAM), founded in 1987, welcomes students from all over the world to train them in the profession of comedian-puppeteer.

Higher education 

Sup Ardenne Campus 

Charleville-Mézières also has several branches of the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne (URCA) and a Business School of the Training Center of the CCI des Ardennes grouped together on the Sup Ardenne Campus:

Charleville-Mézières also has a Regional Center for Innovation and Technology Transfer ( CRITT  : CRITT-MDTS, created in 1984, is a research and expertise center, specializing in materials, deposits and surface treatments.).

Places and heritage 

Civil heritage 

• The Place Ducale , in the center of the town of Charleville.  All the buildings in this square are symmetrical, the roofs destroyed during the war by bombardments have been rebuilt or are under reconstruction to find almost perfect symmetry.
• The current prefecture of the Ardennes occupies the buildings of the Royal School of Engineering of Mézières which trained almost all military engineers under the Ancien Régime .
• The old millwhose construction. It was transformed intoa municipal museum dedicated to Arthur Rimbaud by the architect Petitfils, in 1969.
• Hôtel de Ville – Mézières was violently bombed on the 10th andNovember 11, 1918. The city is razed to 50%. The town hall square (district of Mézières) in neo-Gothic style (1933) composed of two buildings facing each other and separated by a large square, one constituting the town hall itself and the other constituting dwellings for the harmony of the whole. 
• La Macérienne  factory: a former factory (plan of the workshops ( Eiffel ), in the heart of the city, below the ramparts of Mézières and near the Meuse . Listed as a historical monument.
• Place Jacques-Félix, former place of Agriculture.

Cultural heritage 

• The Rimbaud museum is located in the Vieux Moulin, on the Meus.
• The Musée de l’Ardenne is located between Place Ducale and Place Winston-Churchill. It brings together historical collections and many archaeological works, pieces of local craftsmanship. 
• The Grand Puppeteer is not strictly speaking a museum but represents a must-see attraction in Charleville-Mézières. 
• La Maison des Ailleurs is located in the house where Arthur Rimbaud lived with his family. We can follow the journeys of the poet through texts and images projected on the walls and the floor.

Green spaces 

• Mont Olympe  : hill historically facing Charleville, on the other side of the Meuse, today included in the city, a former fortified place that has become a green space and a tourist site, with in particular at its feet the river port and the campsite of Charleville-Mézières. 
• Pierquin Park  : park inserted in the city, former property of Louis Pierquin.
• The regional nature reserve of the Bois-en-Val coast .

Cultural events and festivities 

• The World Festival of Puppet Theaters  : the city hosts, every two years, a world-famous festival dedicated to puppets . 
• The “Garden Puppets” Festival: an annual puppet festival that takes place every summer in July. 
• Les Ailleurs Poétiques  : international meetings of poetry whose objective is to promote an authentic transdisciplinarity.
• The Children’s Film Festival  : every year, at the beginning of the year, there is a festival devoted to cinema and more particularly to children and adolescents playing in the cinema. 
• Le Cabaret Vert  : created in 2005, this is a rock festival that takes place every year in the Bayard stadium. 
• The Beer Festival takes place over 3 days during the Pentecost weekend on Place Ducale and brings together around fifty stands ending with a cafe waiter race.
• The Christmas market on Place Ducale during December attracts a large crowd around its various stands of trinkets, clothes and other small gifts or mulled wines and its inescapable ephemeral ice rink and its Ferris wheel.

Sports 

The town of Charleville-Mezieres has two teams basketball dynamics: the Star of Charleville Mezieres who plays prominently in Pro B . But also a women’s team: the Carolo Basket Flames.

It also has a canoe-kayak club: Charleville-Mézières Canoë-Kayak, which has been at the top level for several years.

With the Wildboars Charleville Mézières, the city has a club allowing the discovery or the practice of American football .

The city has several swimming pools including the Mont-Olympe aquatic center. Charleville was voted the sportiest city in France by the newspaper L’Équipe in 2004.

Charleville-Mézières is also the city of speed skating (also called the Short track ).