page_title: Cambrai
section_title: Location
hierarchical_section_title: Cambrai / Geography / Location
context_page_description: Cambrai, formerly Cambray and historically in English Camerick or Camericke, is a commune in the Nord department and in the Hauts-de-France region of France on the Scheldt river, which is known locally as the Escaut river.
  A sub-prefecture of the department, Cambrai is a town which had 32,518 inhabitants in the Census of 2009. It is in the heart of the urban unit of Cambrai which, with 47,138 inhabitants, ranks as 7th largest of the department. Its urban area, a more extensive range, included 65,986 inhabitants in 2009. With Lille and the towns of the former Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, it is also part of the Metropolitan area of Lille which has more than 3.8 million inhabitants.
  Towards the end of the Roman Empire, Cambrai replaced Bavay as the "capital" of the land of the Nervii. At the beginning of the Merovingian era, Cambrai became the seat of an immense archdiocese covering all the right bank of the Scheldt and the centre of a small ecclesiastical principality, roughly coinciding with the shire of Brabant, including the central part of the Low Countries. The bishopric had some limited secular power and depended on the Holy Roman Empire until annexation to France in 1678.
context_section_description: The town of Cambrai is located in the south of the Nord Department, of which it is chef-lieu of the arrondissement. It belongs to the dense network of the cities of the area which are separated by a few tens of kilometres: Douai is only 24 kilometres (15 mi), Valenciennes is 29 kilometres (18 mi), Arras is 36 kilometres (22 mi) and Saint-Quentin 37 kilometres (23 mi) as the crow flies. The regional capital of Lille is 52 kilometres (32 mi) away.
  Cambrai is not very far from several European capitals: Brussels is 108 kilometres (67 mi), Paris is 160 kilometres (99 mi) and London is 280 kilometres (170 mi).
  The city was born and developed on the right bank of the Scheldt river. Locally known as the Escaut, the river has its source in the department of Aisne, which is barely any more than 20 kilometres (12 mi) away.
caption: Geographic situation of Cambrai in the Nord department
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