Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in northeastern France, with approximately 650,000 inhabitants in the Communauté urbaine (metropolitan area) in 1999. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the préfecture (capital) of the Bas-Rhin département. Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions such as the Council of Europe with its European Court of Human Rights, its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and its European Audiovisual Observatory, the Eurocorps as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union. Strasbourg is an important center of manufacturing and engineering, as well as of road, rail, and river communications. The port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Duisburg, Germany. The city is the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine. Strasbourg's historic center, the Grande Île ("Grand Island"), was classified a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honor was placed on an entire city center. Strasbourg is beautifully fused into the Franco-German culture (Alemannic), and is regarded as the bridge of unity between modern France and Germany. Strasbourg is also a bridge for Germanic and Latin culture.***********The city's Frenchified name is of Germanic origin and means "town (at the crossing) of roads". The modern Stras- is cognate to the original German Straße/Strasse ("street"), while -bourg is cognate to the German -burg ("fortress, town, citadel") and the English borough.************Strasbourg is situated on the Ill River, where it flows into the Rhine on the border with Germany, across from the German town Kehl. The city is situated in the Rhine valley, approximately 20 kilometers east of the Vosges Mountains and 25 kilometers west of the Black Forest. Winds coming from either direction being generally held up by these natural barriers, the perceived summer temperatures can be inordinately high. The defective natural ventilation also makes Strasbourg one of the most atmospherically polluted cities of France, although the progressive disappearance of heavy industry on both banks of the Rhine as well as effective measures of traffic regulation in and around the city are showing encouraging results.