Pas de la Casa
Pas de la Casa (French Pas de la Case ) is a village in the Principality of Andorra on the border with France . It belongs to the municipality ( parròquia ) of Encamp and is located at an altitude of around 2081 meters. In 2018 the place had 1950 inhabitants.
geography
The place is 2 km below the source of the Ariège , which forms the border with France here, and is the only settlement in Andorra on the north side of the main Pyrenees ridge. Pas de la Casa is separated from the rest of Andorra by the ridge with the Envalira Pass . The area around the village is known as Solana de Andorra , formerly Bac de la Casa .
etymology
Pas de la Casa (German "Passage / Weg des Haus"), also Pas del Bac , was the name of the farm road from Andorra to France, named after a shepherd's hut, next to which the path led over a ford through the Ariège .
history
At the beginning of the 20th century a stone bridge was built over the Ariège, which Kurt Tucholsky crossed in 1923. With the construction of the road over the Port d'Envalira , a managed mountain hut was built on the Andorran side of the bridge in 1929 and, with the opening of the pass road in 1933, a customs house on the French side of the bridge. In 1945–50 a row of wooden barracks was built for the sale of food and necessities imported from Spain, for which there was a great demand in France in the post-war years. Winter sports began in 1956/57 with the construction of the first ski lift. In the following decades the place grew continuously through the construction of numerous hotels and apartments. In the 1960s, the Encamp community placed all properties in Pas de la Casa under a long lease. This and the distance to Encamp led to efforts to achieve the status of an independent community for Pas de la Casa, but this has so far been rejected by Encamp.
economy
Pas de la Casa lives mainly from day visitors from neighboring south-west France who come for duty-free shopping. The numerous shops have a wide range of goods, especially alcohol and tobacco products, but also microelectronics, clothing, sporting goods and food. The number of visitors continues to rise due to the continuous rise in the price of cigarettes in France. Tourism is just as important. In addition to the shops, the townscape is characterized by more than 30 hotels and many holiday apartments. In 1996 Pas de la Casa already had 20 ski lifts and downhill slopes with a total length of around 75 kilometers. The first snow cannons in the Pyrenees were built there in the 1980s . Pas de la Casa is now part of Grandvalira , the largest ski area in southern Europe with 200 kilometers of slopes. 20% of Andorra's gross national product is generated in Pas de la Casa.
Population and languages
The majority of the day visitors and numerous employees, especially in the shops, are French. In addition to Catalan, the official language of Andorra, French is also spoken everywhere. A political group from the French minority, the Front Envaliran de Liberation (FEL), complains about the working conditions on site and has repeatedly advocated a "Republic of Envalira" that is independent of Andorra, based on France.
traffic
Road : Pas de la Casa is connected to Ax-les-Thermes / Toulouse and Bourg-Madame / Perpignan via the French N22 and N20 , and to Andorra la Vella via the CG2 , both via the Port d'Envalira and the Tùnel d'Envalìra .
Railway : L'Hospitalet-près-l'Andorre train station , 9 km away (shuttle bus service).
Plane : Toulouse and Barcelona airports (bus connections).
Individual evidence
- ^ Departament d'Estadística d'Andorra. Retrieved May 19, 2019 (Catalan).
- ^ A book of the Pyrenees . Verlag Die Schmiede, Berlin 1927. Current edition: Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-458-34993-8 .
- ^ Encamp parish website. Retrieved January 1, 2020 (Catalan).
Coordinates: 42 ° 32 '32.4 " N , 1 ° 44' 1.8" E