Villars-les-Dombes
Encyclopedia
Villars-les-Dombes is a commune
Communes of France
The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...

 in the Ain
Ain
Ain is a department named after the Ain River on the eastern edge of France. Being part of the region Rhône-Alpes and bordered by the rivers Saône and Rhône, the department of Ain enjoys a privileged geographic situation...

 department in eastern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.
Its people are known as Villardois.

Geography

The town is in the part of Ain which is half-way between Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

 (33 km) and Bourg-en-Bresse
Bourg-en-Bresse
Bourg-en-Bresse is a commune in eastern France, capital of the Ain department, and was capital of the former province of Bresse . It is located north-northeast of Lyon.The inhabitants of Bourg-en-Bresse are known as Burgiens.-Geography:...

 (29 km), in the heart of the area known as the Dombes
Dombes
The Dombes is an area in South-Eastern France, once an independent municipality, formerly part of the province of Burgundy, and now a district comprised in the département of Ain, and bounded W. by the Saône River, by the Rhône, E. by the Ain and N...

, notable for its hundreds of lakes which are suited to fish-rearing as well as to water fowls. Its ornithological park, with a wide variety of species from around the world, is the largest in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

The Chalaronne
Chalaronne
The Chalaronne is a long river in the Ain département, eastern France. Its source is at Lapeyrouse, in the Dombes. It flows generally northwest...

 forms part of the commune's south-western border, flows northward through the western part of the commune, crosses the town, then forms part of its northern border.

History

The lordship of Villars (of which archival evidence dates from 940) became, by marriage, the lordship of Thoire-et-Vilars in 1188, and in about 1400 its caput was Trévoux
Trévoux
Trévoux is a commune in the Ain department in eastern France.It is a suburb of Lyon.-History:The town was the capital of the Dombes principality, and famed for its dictionary...

 (the estate was managed from there). In 1565, Villars was promoted to a marquisate dependent on the house of Savoie (Savoy), a benefice of the Honour of Savoy
Savoy
Savoy is a region of France. It comprises roughly the territory of the Western Alps situated between Lake Geneva in the north and Monaco and the Mediterranean coast in the south....

.

In 1705, the maréchal de Villars
Claude Louis Hector de Villars
Claude Louis Hector de Villars, Prince de Martigues, Marquis then Duc de Villars, Vicomte de Melun was the last great general of Louis XIV of France and one of the most brilliant commanders in French military history, one of only six Marshals who have been promoted to Marshal General of...

 obtained the collection of several lands, a small French enclave in the (German-influenced) province of Franche-Comté
Franche-Comté
Franche-Comté the former "Free County" of Burgundy, as distinct from the neighbouring Duchy, is an administrative region and a traditional province of eastern France...

, as the duchy of Villars. His line died out in 1788, on the death of his son, Honoré-Armand, 2nd Duke de Villars.

Population

External links

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