Vosges
Details
Information
Number	88
Region	Lorraine
Prefecture	Épinal
Subprefecture	Neufchâteau, Vosges , Saint-Dié-des-Vosges
Population  - Total (1999)  - Density	Ranked 60th 380,952 65 /km²
Area	5,874 km²
Arrondissements	3
Cantons	31
Communes	515
President of the general council	Christian Poncelet
Location

Vosges is a French département, named after the Vosges mountain range.

History

The Vosges département was created on March 4, 1790 like the 83 other original départements of France. It was made of territories formerly part of Lorraine.

In 1793 the independent principality of Salm (town of Senones and its surroundings), enclosed inside the Vosges département, was annexed to France and incorporated into Vosges. In 1795 the area of Schirmeck was detached from the Bas-Rhin département and incorporated into the Vosges département. The Vosges département had now an area of 6,127 km² (2,366 sq. miles) which it kept until 1871.

In 1794 the Vosges was the site of a sizeable battle between the forces of Revolutionary France and the Allied Coalition. See Battle of the Vosges.

The Place des Vosges in Paris was so renamed in 1799 when the département became the first to pay the new Revolutionary taxes.

After the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, 4% of the Vosges département in the extreme northeast of the département were annexed to the German Empire by the Treaty of Frankfurt on the ground that the people there spoke Germanic dialects. The area annexed on May 18, 1871 corresponded to the canton of Schirmeck and the northern half of the canton of Saales . Schirmeck and Saales had been historically part of Alsace. These territories, along with the rest of Alsace and the annexed territories of Lorraine, became part of the Reichsland of Elsaß-Lothringen. The area of the Vosges département was thus reduced to its current 5,874 km² (2,268 sq. miles).

In 1919, with the French victory in the First World War, Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France by Germany at the Treaty of Versailles. However, Schirmeck and Saales were not returned to the Vosges département, but instead were incorporated into the recreated Bas-Rhin département.

Geography

The Saône river rises at Vioménil , in the Vosges.

Economy

Demographics

Culture

The Roman fortified town of Grand, located 30km from Toul, has an amphitheatre and a temple to the Cult of Apollo.

Miscellaneous topics

External link

• Conseil General website: http://www.vosges.fr/