Industrial port (cotton textiles, electronics, distilling, oil refining) on the river Seine, in Seine-Maritime département, central N France;
> history
Rouen was the capital of Normandy from 912. Lost by King John 1204, it returned briefly to English possession 1419–49; Joan of Arc was burned in the square 1431. The novelist Flaubert was born here, and the hospital where his father was chief surgeon is now a Flaubert museum.