Havre
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Havre. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
or LA HAVRE (ävr), formerly Havre de Grace, a fortified town, and the principal seaport on the W. coast of France. It is built on a low alluvial tract of land recovered from the sea, and is divided into unequal parts by its outward port and basins. The town has wide thoroughfares, and is clean and well-built, but presents few architectural features of interest. The port, which is the best and most accessible on the coast, consists of three basins separated from each other, and from the outer port, by locks. There are two roadsteads; the great, or outer, is about a league from the port, and the little, or inner roadstead, about half a league. Havre, being the seaport of Paris, most of the colonial and other products destined for its consumption are imported thither. The manufactures are chemicals, furniture, earthenware, oil, tobacco, rope, etc. Shipbuilding is also extensively engaged in. When the Germans invaded Belgium in 1914 Havre became the seat of the Belgian Government. Pop. about 136,000.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
ha'ver. Le, a city of France. The name is French, meaning the haven. It is situated on the northern side of the estuary of the Seine. It is virtually the seaport of Paris. One-fourth of the foreign trade of France passes over its wharves. In commerce it ranks next to Marseilles. A large dock fifty acres in extent has been excavated for the accommodation of the huge transatlantic steamers. Aside from its commercial importance, and the facilities for handling goods, the city is comparatively uninteresting. The corresponding port of England is Plymouth. These ports lie in the most direct route from London to Paris, but the traveler who desires to save time goes by way of Dover and Calais, the ocean passage being shorter. Havre is the port of direct American traffic. At the beginning of the present century the population was 130,196. See France ; Seine
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Both accounts describe a busy but architecturally dull commercial town — "comparatively uninteresting," as Aiton's put it in 1910. That town no longer exists: on 5 September 1944 Allied bombing ahead of the city's liberation killed some 5,000 civilians and destroyed the centre almost entirely, and Le Havre was rebuilt in reinforced concrete to plans by Auguste Perret. The rebuilt centre that replaced it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2005, precisely for the architecture the old entries found lacking. The port survives and has grown into France's leading container port, though the transatlantic liner traffic that justified Aiton's fifty-acre dock ended with the jet age; the population is now around 170,000.
Written for this edition, 2026.