Agde
| Agde | ||
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| region | Occitania | |
| Department | Herault | |
| Arrondissement | Beziers | |
| Canton | Agde (main town) | |
| Community association | Hérault Méditerranée | |
| Coordinates | 43 ° 19 ′ N , 3 ° 29 ′ E | |
| height | 0-110 m | |
| surface | 50.81 km 2 | |
| Residents | 28,609 (January 1, 2017) | |
| Population density | 563 inhabitants / km 2 | |
| Post Code | 34300 | |
| INSEE code | 34003 | |
| Website | http://www.ville-agde.fr | |
Agde [ agd ] is a town with 28,609 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017) on the Hérault River in the department of the same name in the Occitania region in southern France .
geography
The rapidly growing city consists of four districts: the historic core city of Agde, the estuary of Le Grau d'Agde and La Tamarissière to the west, as well as the youngest urbanization Le Cap d'Agde . At the time of the establishment of Agdes as a trading center, around 500 years before Christ, the city was by the sea. Due to the silting up , Agde is now almost four kilometers inland. From the 1960s onwards, the tourist center Cap d'Agde , which was driven forward by urban planning, was built south of Agde , so that the city is now by the sea again. In addition to the tourist facilities and extensive residential areas, there is the naturist quarter Village Naturiste Cap d'Agde with its own sports harbor, an artificial lagoon with a large marina and the (allegedly) first water park in Europe, Aqualand .
population
The inhabitants of Agde are called Agathois . In addition to the resident Mediterranean French population, there is a minority of Spanish origin. This consists of numerous republican Spaniards who fled to southern France during the Spanish Civil War and North Africans who migrated to the mother country as French citizens from the Maghreb countries after the Second World War .
| year | 1962 | 1968 | 1975 | 1982 | 1990 | 1999 | 2006 | 2017 |
| Residents | 8751 | 10.184 | 11.605 | 13,107 | 17,583 | 19,988 | 21,293 | 28,609 |
| Sources: Cassini and INSEE | ||||||||
Pont Saint-Joseph over the Canal du Midi
Pont des Maréchaux over the Hérault
Hérault with Château Laurens and railway bridge
Nudist center Oltra
coat of arms
Description : Three blue wavy bars in gold .
history
Around 550 BC The city of Agde was founded under the name "Agathe Tyche" (roughly: "the good and fortunate coincidence") by Greeks from Asia Minor from Massalia (now Marseille ). In 49 BC Chr. The city was by the Romans their colony Narbonese slammed shut.
At the beginning of the 5th century a diocese was established in Agde. In 408, the first bishop, Venuste, was martyred . In 475 the Visigoths conquered the city, 500 the Alamanni .
In 506 a synod was held in Agde . In 725 the Saracens invaded , and in 737 Charles Martell devastated the city. In 872, construction began on the Saint-Etienne cathedral , which was only consecrated on July 8, 1453. In 1348 a plague epidemic, the Black Death, raged the city. The city was also ravaged by the plague in 1504 .
In the 17th century, Cardinal Richelieu planned the construction of a large military port on the Cape of Agde. However, this plan was never realized. However, the fortification Fort Brescou was built on the island of the same name Île de Brescou 1500 meters off the coast, which had temporarily served as a state prison and as a kind of asylum for the elderly.
During the French Revolution , the last Bishop of Agde, Charles-François de Saint-Simon Sandricourt , was guillotined in Paris in 1794 .
As early as 1858, Agde was connected to the railway network.
In 1939 the internment camp Camp d'Agde was established, which took in around 25,000 Spanish supporters and fighters of the defeated republican government there. In 1942 Agde was occupied by the German Wehrmacht . The Germans withdrew again in August 1944 after an Allied bombing .
With the opening of a communal campsite on July 1, 1961 on the site of today's Cap d'Agde and the start of construction on the Cap d'Agde district in 1963, the period of expansive tourism began, which is of great economic importance for the city today. The high point of the building boom came in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Today, the extensive urbanization is largely complete.
Economy and Transport
The main economic sectors are agriculture , especially viticulture, wine trade, some coastal fishing and, above all, tourism . Agde has long been a popular destination for holidaymakers, primarily from France , the German-speaking countries, the Netherlands and Great Britain , who come to sail , swim, enjoy leisure time and because of the nudism . The Village Naturiste Cap d'Agde has up to 40,000 residents and 1.5 million visitors, including day visitors, visit the site each year. The Village Naturiste is the most popular naturist complex in the world.
The city center has a train station on the Bordeaux – Sète railway line , which is on the TGV connection (Paris–) Nîmes - Perpignan . Agde can also be reached via Béziers Airport, just 10 km west of the city . With the A9 motorway, which is around nine kilometers north of Bessan , Agde also has access to trunk roads.
Culture and sights
In addition to the closed medieval townscape, the Musée de l'Ephèbe (in the district of Cap d'Agde) and the fishing joust on the Hérault are of cultural interest in Agde . The Journées du Terroir regional market also takes place every year on the last weekend in June .
The northern urban area of Agde is crossed by the Canal du Midi , which here has its only lock with a round lock basin. It also has three lock gates, as a branch channel branches off to the Mediterranean from here . The channel is a 1996 UNESCO - World Heritage Site .
In the urban area is also the extinct volcano Mont Saint Loup (106 meters high), on which there is a radio station for the French Navy and a lighthouse with a viewing platform.
See also: List of the Monuments historiques in Agde
Sports
Agde owns the rugby Olympique Agathois, founded in 1969 , which played in the third highest French rugby league in 2012/13 . Still clearly steeped in tradition, founded in 1904 is Racing Club Olympique Agathois whose footballers though never (semi-) in a professional league were represented and 2012/13 in the fifth division competed, but the nationwide main round in even a dozen times cup competition could reach .
Town twinning
Agde is twinned with the Spanish city of Antequera in Andalusia .
Personalities
- Madame Saqui (1786–1866), acrobat and tightrope walker
Web links
- Maximilian Ihm : Agatha . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, Col. 738.
- City of Agde
- Le Cap d'Agde
Individual evidence
- ↑ Not entirely without Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 5, 2010, accessed on January 5, 2017.
- ↑ Without author: FKK 2004 Travel Guide. Orwid Verlag, Elstertrebnitz 2004, p. 109