Fontenay-le-Comte
| Fontenay-le-Comte | ||
|---|---|---|
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| region | Pays de la Loire | |
| Department | Vendée | |
| Arrondissement | Fontenay-le-Comte | |
| Canton | Fontenay-le-Comte (main town) | |
| Community association | Pays de Fontenay-Vendée | |
| Coordinates | 46 ° 28 ′ N , 0 ° 48 ′ W | |
| height | 2-68 m | |
| surface | 34.05 km 2 | |
| Residents | 13,226 (January 1, 2017) | |
| Population density | 388 inhabitants / km 2 | |
| Post Code | 85200 | |
| INSEE code | 85092 | |
 town hall |
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Fontenay-le-Comte is a French municipality with 13,226 inhabitants (at January 1, 2017) in the department of Vendée in the region of Pays de la Loire . It is the administrative seat of the arrondissement Fontenay-le-Comte and the capital of the canton Fontenay-le-Comte .
geography
Fontenay-le-Comte is located in the South Vendée plain on the banks of the Vendée River .
history
In 1242 Fontenay becomes the capital of the Bas-Vendée. As a Protestant city, it was besieged eight times during the Huguenot Wars , and in 1621 the castle was razed. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes destroys Fontenay's economic base.
In 1790 Fontenay-le-Comte (which was called Fontenay-le-Peuple during the Revolution) became the capital of the new Vendée department. In 1804 Napoleon moved the prefecture to La Roche-sur-Yon , and in 1812 Fontenay became a sub-prefecture.
Fontenay-le-Comte airfield was a fighter base for the German Air Force for a few months during the Second World War in 1944 . Initially, a Fw 190A squadron was stationed here, the 2nd squadron of the supplementary hunting group West (2./EJGr.West), which was stationed here from mid-February to mid-May. In the run-up to the Allied invasion of Normandy , the III. Group of Jagdgeschwader 2 (III./JG 2) , whose Fw 190A left the airfield on the day after the start of the invasion towards Creil .
Population development
| year | 1962 | 1968 | 1975 | 1982 | 1990 | 1999 | 2007 | 2017 |
| Residents | 11,520 | 12,939 | 15,275 | 15,295 | 14,456 | 13,792 | 14,464 | 13,226 |
Attractions
- Fontaine des Quatre Tias (1542)
- Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption Catholic Parish Church and Saint-Jean Church (15th century)
- Hôtel des évêques de Maillezais
- Hotel de la Sénéchaussée (1595)
- Hôtel dit Château-Gaillard
- Terre-Neuve Castle (16th century)
- Musee de Fontenay
See also: List of Monuments historiques in Fontenay-le-Comte
Town twinning
- Crevillent , Spain, since 1968
- Gaoua , Burkina Faso, since 1989
- Krotoszyn , Poland, since 1994
- Palatine , USA, since 1997
- { Diosig , Romania, since 1997
Personalities
- François Rabelais (c. 1494 or 1483–1553), prose writer of the French Renaissance
- François Viète (1540–1603), lawyer and mathematician
- Augustin-Daniel Belliard (1769-1832), General
- Georges Simenon (1903–1989), writer, lived in the city from 1940 to 1942 and settled his novel Maigret is afraid here .
- Michel Crépeau (1930–1999), French politician
literature
- Le Patrimoine des Communes de la Vendée. Flohic Editions, Volume 1, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-84234-118-X , pp. 253-273.
