Aigueblanche
| Aigueblanche | ||
|---|---|---|
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| local community | Grand-Aigueblanche | |
| region | Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes | |
| Department | Savoie | |
| Arrondissement | Albertville | |
| Coordinates | 45 ° 30 ′ N , 6 ° 31 ′ E | |
| Post Code | 73260 | |
| Former INSEE code | 73003 | |
| Incorporation | 1st January 2019 | |
| status | Commune déléguée | |
| Website | www.ville-aigueblanche.fr | |
.jpg) The Morel mountain stream in its river bed, stepped for the purpose of erosion protection. |
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Aigueblanche is a commune Déléguée in the French commune of Grand-aigueblanche with 3235 inhabitants (at January 1, 2017) in the department of Savoie in the region of Auvergne Rhône-Alpes .
geography
location
Aigueblanche is located at 472 m , about 46 km east of the prefecture of Chambéry , 83 km south-southeast of the city of Geneva and 70 km east-northeast of the city of Grenoble (as the crow flies). The village is on the banks of the Isère in the historic province of Tarentaise . Neighboring municipalities of Aigueblanche were La Léchère in the north, Hautecour in the east, Moûtiers and Le Bois in the south and Les Avanchers-Valmorel and Saint-Oyen in the west.
topography
The 19.67 km² area of the Commune déléguée covers a section of the Isère valley between Moûtiers and Albertville and extends below the town center on both valley flanks. The river crosses the Commune déléguée in a north-westerly direction. Upstream, on the other hand, the Isère forms the border of the Commune déléguée between Aigueblanche and Le Bois. Here the valley is constricted to a gorge for a length of about one kilometer, the Gorges du Ponserand. At the bottom of the gorge is the Barrage des Échelles d'Hannibal. In the northeast, the area of the Commune déléguée juts out into the Beaufortain massif in a wedge shape and reaches its highest point a few meters below the 2297 m high Quermoz. Several mountain streams drain the valley flanks towards Isère, the most important of them being the Morel from the side valley of Les Avanchers-Valmorel.
Structure of the Commune déléguée
The Commune déléguée Aigueblanche also includes the actual town center
- the hamlets of Navette (around 1050 m ), Villargerel (around 800 m ), Villoudry (around 720 m ), Grand Cœur ( 540 m ) and Villabéringer (around 610 m ) at various points on the north flank above the Isère,
- the districts of L'Étrat, La Grande Prairie, Saint-Laurent, Bellecombe-en-Tarentaise and Le Plan-du-Truy (all around 470 m ) in the valley floor on both banks of the Isère, as well
- Les Emptes ( 700 m ), hamlet on the southern flank not far from the neighboring village of Le Bois.
history
The Tarentaise was already settled by the Celtic people of the Ceutrons before Roman times. In the High Middle Ages , Aigueblanche was first mentioned in the 11th century as aqua alba . From 1184 the name Aqueblanche or Aquablanca has been passed down in connection with a church building. The name refers to the light color of the local mountain rivers. At that time there was a small manor with a permanent house in Aigueblanche , which was made marquisate in 1680 . On February 9, 1971, the formerly independent communities Bellecombe-en-Tarentaise, Grand-Cœur and Villargerel became part of Aigueblanche. In the following year, the neighboring municipality of Les Avanchers-Valmorel merged with Aigueblanche, but this incorporation was reversed at the end of 1987.
The history of the villages incorporated in 1971 also goes back to the High Middle Ages. Of all three, a church building is documented in the 12th century ( Ecclesia de Bellacomba 1184, Ecclesia de Cors 1170, Ecclesia de Villargerardi 1170). The name "Bellecombe" means beautiful valley, "Cors" goes back to cortis or curtis , while "Villargerel" refers to the estate of a Gérard or Girard.
The municipality of Aigueblanche merged with Le Bois and Saint-Oyen to form the Commune nouvelle Grand-Aigueblanche on January 1, 2019 . Since then it has had the status of a Commune déléguée. It belonged to the canton of Moûtiers in the arrondissement of Albertville and was the seat of the community association Vallées d'Aigueblanche .
Attractions
The most important sight in Aigueblanche is the baroque church of Saint-Martin of Villargerel from the period 1682 to 1685. It is classified as a monument historique and is the only church in the Tarentaise to have a quadrilateral plan. A richly decorated dome with a small lantern rises above the crossing . The main altar dates from 1707.
In the medieval center of Aigueblanche is the Saint-Jean-Baptiste church, whose choir dates back to the 15th century. The current building was completed in 1728 and expanded again in the 19th century. With the restructuring of the parishes between 2002 and 2010, Sacré-Cœur in La Léchère took over the role of the parish church of the parish of Aigueblanche. There are other former parish churches in Bellecombe and Grand-Cœur.
Part of the wall with gate and the castle (or permanent house) are still preserved from the medieval fortifications. The latter consists of a square main tower and a residential extension, from which a semicircular tower protrudes, which surrounds a spiral staircase. An 18th century watermill used to make walnut oil is now owned by the municipality and was completely restored in 2012.
A hiking trail that starts in Grand Cœur leads to the 2297 m high Quermoz.
population
| Population development | |
|---|---|
| year | Residents |
| 1962 | 771 |
| 1968 | 973 |
| 1975 | 3.121 |
| 1982 | 3,093 |
| 1990 | 2,665 |
| 1999 | 2,664 |
| 2006 | 2,926 |
| 2011 | 3,106 |
With 3195 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2016), Aigueblanche was one of the medium-sized communities in the Savoie department. After the population had remained constant at around 450 for a long time, an increase in population has been recorded since the second quarter of the 20th century. The jumps in the 1970s and 80s reflect the incorporations. The local residents of Aigueblanche are called "Aigueblancherain (e) s".
Economy and Infrastructure
Aigueblanche was a village dominated by agriculture and alpine farming until well into the 20th century . Since the middle of that century, the place has developed alongside Moûtiers into a local center of the lower Tarentaise and is now home to various medium-sized businesses and local small-scale businesses. In the meantime the village has also developed into a residential community whose employees work in the area. Despite the proximity to the large ski areas of the Tarentaise, tourism in Aigueblanche is of no economic importance with just one small hotel.
The village is located directly on the main artery of the Tarentaise, the two-lane national road N90 with access in Aigueblanche. This merges into the A430 motorway down the valley at Albertville . At the same time, the Saint-Pierre-d'Albigny – Bourg-Saint-Maurice railway line crosses the municipality with the closest train station in Moûtiers, which is reached via a 1.5 km long tunnel. From Aigueblanche, departmental roads lead to the various hamlets and in the Morel valley to Saint-Oyen and Les Avanchers-Valmorel. Three road bridges cross the Isère, the N90 on the southern edge of the municipality and one each at the town center and one downstream at L'Étrat. Chambéry-Savoie (distance 82 km) and Geneva (123 km) are possible airports in the region .
Together with Le Bois, Aigueblanche is the center of a system of underground hydropower plants . The Barrage des Échelles d'Hannibal, built in 1954, initially only supported a hydropower plant, but since 1974 it has also served as the lower reservoir of a pumped storage power plant . The hydroelectric power plant uses the slope of about 200 meters between the valley of the Isere and the south-western valley of the Arc in the Maurienne by a part of the discharge amount of the Isère by a 12 km long pressure line under the Grand Arc to an underground power plant at Randens is diverted . Opposite Aigueblanche is the Usine électrique souterraine de Sainte-Hélène de la Coche on the mountain flank of the Ponserand Gorge, which is connected to a reservoir on the southern edge of Le Bois via a pressure pipe with a 900 m gradient. This reservoir, the Barrage et retenue de la Coche, is also used as a pump storage.
education
Aigueblanche has a pre-school (French: école maternelle ) and three primary schools (French: école élémentaire ) (two of which have integrated pre-school classes).
Web links
- Official website of the municipality of Aigueblanche (French)
- Website of the Association Culture et Patrimoine d'Aigueblanche (French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b A. Gros: Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de lieu de la Savoie . Belley, Imprimerie Aimé Chaduc, 1937, p. 18, 55, 147, 502 (French, limited preview in Google Book search).
- ^ A b JJ Vernier: Dictionnaire topographique du département de la Savoie . Imprimerie Savoisienne, 1896, p. 191, 232, 430, 741 (French, online on BNF [accessed January 19, 2014]).
- ↑ a b Aigueblanche - notice communale. In: cassini.ehess.fr. Retrieved on December 14, 2014 (French, population from INSEE from 1990 ).
- ^ Eglise de Villargerel in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French).
- ↑ La paroisse Ste-Marie-Madeleine d'Aigueblanche. Retrieved December 14, 2014 (French).
- ^ Complete dossier on Aigueblanche. In: INSEE . Retrieved December 14, 2014 (French).
- ↑ Barrage des Échelles d'Hannibal. In: Structurae
- ↑ Barrage de la Coche. In: Structurae