What is "lourdes"

Lourdes (; Lorda in Occitan) is a small market town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees. It is part of the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in south-western France. Prior to the mid-19th century, the town was best known for the Château fort de Lourdes, a fortified castle that rises up from a rocky escarpment at its centre.

In 1858 Lourdes rose to prominence in France and abroad due to the Marian apparitions seen by the peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous, who was later canonized. Shortly thereafter the city became one of the world's most important sites of pilgrimage and religious tourism. Today Lourdes hosts around six million visitors every year from all corners of the world. This constant stream of pilgrims and tourists transformed quiet Lourdes into the second most important center of tourism in France, second only to Paris, and the third most important site of international Catholic pilgrimage after Rome and the Holy Land. As of 2011, of French cities only Paris had more hotel capacity.

Lourdes is a town in southern France. Lourdes may also refer to:

In cities and towns,

• Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, often referred to simply as "Lourdes", a site of religious pilgrimage in the town of Lourdes in France, reputed to heal the sick
  • Our Lady of Lourdes
  • Lourdes apparitions
  • Lourdes water
• Lourdes, São Paulo, Brazil
• Lourdes, Norte de Santander, Colombia
• Lourdes, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
• Lourdes, Paraguay
• Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes, Manitoba, Canada
• Nossa Senhora de Lourdes, Sergipe, Brazil

In other uses,

• Lourdes, the title of an 1894 novel by the French writer Émile Zola
• Lourdes, the title of a 1914 book by Robert Hugh Benson
• Lourdes (film), a 2009 film
• Lourdes SIGINT Station, Cuba
• Lourdes Stadium, a stadium in Drogheda, Republic of Ireland
• Lourdes Hernández, mostly only Lourdes, a Spanish singer-songwriter
• Lourdes (C%2B%2B library), a portable C++ library
• Rochester Lourdes High School, in Rochester, Minnesota.
• Lourdes High School in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Lourdes and María de Lourdes are given names.

Notable people bearing these names include:

• Lourdes Alcorta (born 1951), a Peruvian politician
• Lourdes Becerra (born 1973), a Spanish swimmer
• Lourdes Benedicto (born 1974), an American actress
• Lourdes Castrillo Brillantes, a Filipino writer
• Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon, daughter of entertainer Madonna
• María de Lourdes Dieck-Assad, a Mexican economist
• Lourdes Domínguez Lino, a Spanish tennis player
• Lourdes Estores, an American glamour model
• Lourdes Flores, a Peruvian politician
• Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, an American journalist
• Lourdes Hernández, a Spanish singer-songwriter
• Lourdes Lucero, a fictional character from DC Comics
• Lourdes Mendoza, a Peruvian politician
• Maria de Lurdes Mutola, an athlete from Mozambique
• Lourdes Pérez, a Puerto Rican recording artist
• Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo, a former prime minister of Portugal
• Lourdes Virginia Moran Poe ( Lovi Poe), a Filipino actress
• Lourdes Portillo, a Mexican-American film director
• María de Lourdes Rojo e Incháustegui, a Mexican actress and politician
• María de Lourdes Santiago, a Puerto Rican politician
• Maria de Lourdes Pereira dos Santos Van-Dúnem (Lourdes Van-Dúnem), an Angolan singer
• Maria de Lourdes Villiers-Farrow ( Mia Farrow), an American actress

Lourdes is a 2009 film directed by Jessica Hausner. It stars Sylvie Testud, Léa Seydoux, Bruno Todeschini and Elina Löwensohn. It received the 2009 Vienna International Film Festival's Vienna Film Prize for Best Film.

Lourdes is a library for the C++ programming language that provide support for simple tasks such as multithreading, concurrency, networking, logging, among others.