The ancient capital of Normandy, a busy manufacturing town on the Seine, 87 m. NW of Paris; a good portion of the old, crowded, picturesque town has given place to more spacious streets and dwellings; the old ramparts have been converted into handsome boulevards; has several Gothic churches unrivalled in beauty, a cathedral (the seat of an archbishop), &c.; the river affords an excellent waterway to the sea, and as a port Rouen ranks fourth in France; is famed for its cotton and other textiles; Joan of Arc was burned here in 1431.