Havre, LE (a contraction of the original name, LE HAVRE DE NOTRE DAME DE GRACE), a seaport in the French department of Seine-Inférieure, and, next to Marseilles, the chief commercial emporium of the country, is situated on the north side of the estuary of the Seine, 143 miles NW. of Paris by rail. The port was entered in 1886 by 2580 vessels of 2,003,983 tons, and in 1888 by 2717 vessels of 2,341,023 tons, of which 1210 vessels of 825,892 tons were British and 645 vessels of 779,237 tons were French. These figures are exclusive of 3112 (French) vessels of 379,777 tons and 3456 of 532,911 tons, in 1886 and 1888 respectively, engaged in the coasting trade. The chief imports are coals, wheat, cotton, dyewoods, coffee, hides, petroleum, wool, palm-oil, alcohol, cocoa, and sugar. The exports consist principally of woollen and cotton goods, potatoes, salt, butter, paper, silks and ribbons, china-ware, eggs, and ochre, in addition to million gallons of wine and nearly £280,000 worth of millinery. The customs duties levied amounted to £2,125,696 in 1888. Havre possesses excellent harbour accommodation, having nine separate dock basins (the ninth completed in 1887), with an area of 174 acres and 36,400 feet of quays. The port is very greatly handicapped in the struggle for commercial success by the paucity of railway connection and the height of the harbour dues. But the greatest drawback is the difficult approach to the harbour from the sea, owing to the shifting sandbanks that lie in the estuary. A very comprehensive scheme for improving the harbour and its approaches, and the lower course of the Seine, was put forward in 1889. It embraced the construction of a capacious outer harbour, protected by breakwaters, and provided with a new entrance from deep water, the building of protective dykes in the estuary, and very extensive dredging operations for the purpose of deepening the Seine up to Rouen. Meanwhile dredging is going on on a large scale just outside the harbour. Two new dry-docks were opened in 1889. Havre does not possess a fishing fleet. It is one of the chief ports in France from which emigrants set sail. The average of 30,000 rose in 1888 to 38,000, nearly one-third being French, with about the same number of Italians and one-fifth Swiss. Two-thirds were bound for the United States, the rest for the Argentine Republic. Amongst the local industries the first place is occupied by ship-building. Next come machine-factories, cannon-foundries, flour-mills, petroleum and sugar refineries, and dye-works. Havre has a hydrographical, an industrial, and a commercial school, an influential chamber of commerce, and a tribunal of commerce. Its notable buildings include the 16th-century church of Notre Dame, a museum, a Renaissance town-house, a marine arsenal, &c. There are statues to Bernardin de St Pierre and Casimir Delavigne, both natives of Havre. The sanitary condition of the town is not so good as it should be. Nevertheless Havre is visited for its sea-bathing. Pop. (1876) 85,407; (1891) 116,369.
Down to 1516 Havre was only a fishing-village. Its history as a seaport dates from the reign of Francis I., who built the harbour and fortified it. Havre was held for some months in 1562 by the English, who were expelled by Charles IX. after a hot siege. Louis XIV. made it a strong citadel, and it was several times bombarded by the English in the 17th and 18th centuries. The town walls were demolished in the middle of the 19th century. Mdlle. de Scudéry was born at Havre. See histories by Morlent (1825) and Borély (1883).