Every design for Thionville

Long before anyone crossed a border here to go to work in Luxembourg, Pepin the Short had a royal palace built on this spot, on the left bank of the Moselle. Thionville, Diedenhofen in German and Diddenuewen in Luxembourgish, has stood at a meeting point of kingdoms ever since, halfway between Metz and the Grand Duchy and facing its neighbour Yutz across the water.

What sets it apart is how often the map has been redrawn around it. It belonged to the House of Luxembourg, then to Burgundy and the Habsburgs, became French, was annexed by the new German Empire and returned to France at the end of the First World War. Each period left a mark: Vauban's fortifications, of which the Porte du Couronné d'Yutz still stands; large neo-Romanesque buildings from the German years; the Tour aux Puces, now a museum; and the Château de la Grange on the edge of town. The steel industry that once filled the valley of the Fensch shaped the rest.

For anyone raised between the river, the old forts and the morning traffic north, the outline on the map is simply where life began.