Bourganeuf
| Bourganeuf | ||
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| region | Nouvelle-Aquitaine | |
| Department | Creuse | |
| Arrondissement | Guéret | |
| Canton | Bourganeuf (main town) | |
| Community association | Creuse Sud Ouest | |
| Coordinates | 45 ° 57 ′ N , 1 ° 45 ′ E | |
| height | 380-602 m | |
| surface | 22.54 km 2 | |
| Residents | 2,572 (January 1, 2017) | |
| Population density | 114 inhabitants / km 2 | |
| Post Code | 23400 | |
| INSEE code | 23030 | |
 Town hall (Hôtel de ville) of Bourganeuf and Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste |
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Bourganeuf ( Buorgon Nuòu in Occitan) is a French commune in the Creuse in the region Nouvelle-Aquitaine with 2,572 inhabitants (at January 1, 2017).
Bourganeuf owes its foundation to the Order of St. John . It was the capital of the "Langue d'Auvergne", one of the eight provinces of the order, until 1750, when it was replaced by Lyon .
Bourganeuf was the third city in France to introduce electricity in 1886 .
geography
The municipality of Bourganeuf is 33 kilometers from Guéret , 50 km from Limoges and 400 km from Paris and is located on the Taurion River . The Taurion rises near Pallier in Gentioux-Pigerolles. It crosses the lake of Lavaud-Gelade and the “Rigole de diable” (smile of the devil), crosses Bourganeuf and after 125 km flows into the Vienne at Saint-Priest-Taurion .
coat of arms
Description : Three pressed silver rafters in black .
history
Bourganeuf was founded in the 12th century as a commandery of the Order of St. John. This commandery then became the headquarters of the Auvergne Priory , which was moved to Lyon in 1750 . There are still important remains of this priory: the building of the convent (today's town hall), the Saint-Jean church (13th to 15th centuries) and above all the famous "Zizim tower".
Bourganeuf was the capital of the district of Bourganeuf from 1790 to 1800 and of the arrondissement of Bourganeuf until 1926.
In 1972 Bourganeuf aroused great interest across France through a criminal case. Bernard Cousty and Yvette Balaire were passionately in love, but they were both married, she to the mayor of Bourganeuf, René Balaire. Both did not want to leave it with an affair and at the same time rejected divorces for themselves. Therefore, both Cousty's wife and Balaire's husband planned to murder. On December 24, 1969, Ms. Cousty died unexpectedly of flu with no suspicion of a crime. Two months later, on February 23, 1970, Mayor René Balaire was found burned in his crashed car. Suicide or accident? At first it didn't seem suspicious, but after about a year the murder of René Balair was discovered by the police. In May 1972, Yvette Balair was sentenced by the Limousin court to 10 years imprisonment for an accessory to murder, and Bernard Cousty was sentenced to death. Cousty then surprisingly succeeded in resuming his proceedings for formal reasons. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Gironde jury on March 1, 1973.
The criminal case was successfully filmed in 1973 under the title Bloody Wedding , directed by Claude Chabrol . In 2007, French television showed "The Devilish Lovers of Bourganeuf" as the 5th episode in its series "50 Years of News".
Population development
| year | 1962 | 1968 | 1975 | 1982 | 1990 | 1999 | 2007 | 2016 |
| Residents | 3310 | 3804 | 3637 | 53738 | 3385 | 3163 | 2948 | 2656 |
| Sources: Cassini and INSEE | ||||||||
Town twinning
- Bourganeuf and the German town of Zirndorf in Bavaria have been twinned since 1988 .
