Balbigny | |
Hành chính | |
---|---|
Quốc gia | Pháp |
Vùng | Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes |
Tỉnh | Loire |
Quận | Roanne |
Tổng | Néronde |
Xã (thị) trưởng | Jean-Marc Regny (2008–2014) |
Thống kê | |
Độ cao | 314–482 m (1.030–1.581 ft) |
Diện tích đất1 | 16,98 km2 (6,56 dặm vuông Anh) |
Nhân khẩu2 | 2.546 (2006) |
- Mật độ | 150/km2 (390/sq mi) |
INSEE/Mã bưu chính | 42011/ 42510 |
1 Dữ liệu địa chính Pháp loại trừ các hồ và ao lớn hơn 1 km² (0.386 dặm vuông hoặc 247 acre) cũng như các cửa sông. | |
2 Dân số không tính hai lần: cư dân của nhiều xã (ví dụ, các sinh viên và quân nhân) chỉ tính một lần. |
Balbigny là một xã trong tỉnh Loire miền trung nước Pháp.
Balbigny owes its name to a Roman general named Balbinius who based himself here in order to conduct a war. Nothing survives from this period. The earliest identified traces of Balbigny date from 1090.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, before the Loire was channelled, Balbigny was a village of boatmen, known for flat bottomed boats known as Rambertes which were used to transport the coal mined at Saint-Étienne. The loaded Rambertes arrived from Saint-Rambert and stopped off at Balbigny where the boat crews were changed, taking the boats to the next change-over point at Roanne. All this changed in August 1832 with the arrival of the third oldest railway line in France which connected Andrézieux-Bouthéon with Roanne, passing Balbigny en route. An extension of the rail network in 1913 saw Balbigny connected with Saint-Germain-Laval và Régny. The coal was therefore transported by rail, but the railway also gave farmers in the district access to a wider range of markets for their produce.
The road bridge crossing the Loire was destroyed in 1940 in order to hold back advancing German troops, and a ferry service was introduced to permit the river to be crossed. The bridge was rebuilt in 1950 and continues in existence in 2010.