Flers (French pronunciation: [flɛʁ]) is a commune in the Orne department in Normandy, France.^[3]

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Flers
Commune
Château de Flers
Coat of arms
Location of Flers
Flers Show map of France Flers Show map of Normandy
Coordinates: 48°45′06″N 0°33′38″W
Country	France
Region	Normandy
Department	Orne
Arrondissement	Argentan
Canton	Flers-1 and 2
Intercommunality	CA Flers Agglo
Government
• Mayor (2020–2026)	Yves Goasdoué[1]
Area 1	21.15 km2 (8.17 sq mi)
Population  (2021)[2]	14,482
• Density	680/km2 (1,800/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
INSEE/Postal code	61169 /61100
Elevation	182–276 m (597–906 ft) (avg. 189 m or 620 ft)
Website	www.flers-agglo.fr
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km2 (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

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The inhabitants are called Flériens.

Flers is bordered to the north by the communes of Saint-Georges-des-Groseillers and Aubusson, to the north-east by Ronfeugerai, to the west by La Lande-Patry and Saint-Paul, to the south-west by La Chapelle-Biche, La Chapelle-au-Moine and Messei, and to the south-east by La Selle-la-Forge.

The commune is situated in the north-west of the Orne département, about ten kilometres from the border of the Calvados, an hour east of Granville, and two hours by train from Paris. It depends on a prefecture located an hour north in Caen.

The commune is crossed by the river Vère which ends in the river Noireau in Pont-Erembourg (commune of Saint-Denis-de-Méré).

The first written mentions of Flers appear at the end of the twelfth century as Flers (1164–1179) or Flex (1188–1221). Some authors think that the name of the town derives from the German toponym Hlaeri, meaning wasteland or common grazing land, while others suggest an origin in the German Fliessen, from the Dutch vliet or the Latin fluere Latin Fluere, indicating a waterflow, basin or marsh. Yet another etymology links Flers to the Latin flexus, meaning the bend in a road or river. Finally, the Breton term fler or flear means bad smell, indicating the stench of stagnant water. All etymologies seem to agree however that the town is named for its topography and the water close to it.^[5]

Flers station is served by TER Normandie trains between Paris and Granville. It has a local bus system for Flers and the surrounding communities, and departmental lines connecting it with other major towns in Orne and Calvados.

L'aérodrome Flers-Saint-Paul is an aerodrome bordering Flers in the neighbouring commune of La Lande-Patry that opened in 1937.^[11][12] Its ICAO airport code is LFOG.^[13] It has a 742 meter paved runway.^[14]

The castle, dating back to the 16th and 18th century, houses a museum of ancient and 19th century paintings and sculptures, applied art (furniture and decoration) and local history.^[15] The castle was registered as a Monument historique in 1907.^[16]

Flers has another building registered as a monument, the Chapel of Remembrance (Also known as the chapel of the minor seminary), which was built between from 1926 to 1932 to commemorate those fallen from the First World War.^[17] It features work by Prix de Rome winning artist, Emile Beaume and stained glass artist Louis Barillet.^[17] It was registered as a monument in 2006.^[18]

Other interesting visits are the early 20th century neo-gothic Saint-Germain church and the 19th century neo-Romanesque Saint-Jean church, and the covered market built in 1883 on a former cemetery.^[19]

• Flers castle
• Flers castle
• The covered market
• Saint-Germain church

• Louis Barrabé (1895–1961), geologist, buried here^[20]
• Paulette Duhalde (1921–1945), heroine of the resistance, died when deported to Ravensbrück

Flers is twinned with:^{[22][23][24][25]}

• Warminster, England, since 1973
• Poundou, Burkina Faso, since 1977
• Wunstorf, Germany, since 1994
• Charleston, South Carolina, USA, since 2022

• Communes of the Orne department