Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Annecy

ANNECY, a town of France, in the deparment of Haute Savoie, situated at the foot of the lake of Annecy, 22 miles south of Geneva. The surrounding country presents many scenes of beauty, and the town itself is a pleasant residence, containing a cathedral, a bishop’s palace, a church (in which the relics of St Francis de Sales are preserved), and an old castle, formerly the residence of the counts of Geneva. It is the seat of several important manufactures, the chief being linen and cotton goods, glass, cutlery, earthenware, and leather; linen bleaching is also carried on to a considerable extent, and in the neighbourhood there are some iron mines. There are traces of the Roman origin of the place; at all events Annecy le Vieux, a village a little to the N.E., existed in the time of the Romans. Annecy was once the capital of the counts of Geneva; from them it passed to the counts of Savoy, or, as they ultimately became, kings of Sardinia, by whom it was ceded to the French in 1860. Population, 11,581. The lake of Annecy is about 9 miles in length by 2 in breadth, and its surface is more than 1400 feet above the sea. It discharges its waters by means of a canal into the Fier, a tributary of the Rhone.