Alsace

Etymology

The etymological significance of the word Alsace comes from the word in Vieux high German: Ali-sazzo (inhabitant of other bank).

Ali- comes from alja (other) resulting from proto-Germanic (Gotique: aljis - Old high German: eli - Anglo-Saxon: they - English: else )
sazzo is the preterite of the verb sizzan (to be) resulting from the old man high German Proto-Germanic: setjanan - preterite of German: saß - preterite of the English viel: sæt ).

Literally: “that which is installed on other bank”. It was probably mentioned to indicate the Alamans installed in the west of the the Rhine.

Geography

Climate

The Alsatian climate is “semi-continental of shelter”. The winds of west undergo an orographical forcing on the Western slope of the the Vosges, struck orographical rains. The air is thus found discharged out of water, drier, when it crossed the Vosgean barrier: it is the Effet of fœhn, to which Alsace is subjected.

Consequence: the winter is cold there and dry, the hot summer and there are few precipitations. Colmar profits from a sunny and dry microclimate: it is the second driest city of France (after Perpignan) with 550 mm of precipitations per annum what in fact an ideal environment for the culture of the vine and the wine of Alsace. Its Ground water important avoids however the consequences to him of possible Sécheresse S.

Topography

Alsace covers a surface of 8.280 km ² (190 km length on 50 km broad are 1,5% of the surface of France), which makes of it smallest of the administrative areas of metropolitan France, the Corsica having about same surface. It extends from the south in north along the the Rhine which borders it in the east.

It is limited to north by the river Lauter, where the German Palatinat starts, and in the east by the Rhine, with the right-hand side of which the Bade-Wurtemberg extends, in the south by the Suisse, in south-west by the area Franche-Comté and in the west by the area Lorraine.

Its space is cut out in several whole of relief:

in the east, the plain of Alsace drained by the Ill and devoted to the cereal field crop. The forest still occupies there of important spaces: forest of Haguenau in north and that of the Hardt in the south;
between the Rhine and Ill, Ried . This marshy zone and wet preserve its remarkable natural characters worked by the old formerly wild river (Rhenish forests traversed by the arms of the Rhine, easily flooded meadows, phreatic sources, rivers), where protected natural reserves and sites fill with wonder the significant heart.
in the west dominates the the Vosges or the notched Vosgean solid mass of broad valleys of the affluents of Ill; here in fact the pastures of altitude (High Thatches) alternate with the forest; the Grand Balloon 1424 m (ex balloon of Guebwiller) is the culminating point of Alsace, it is located in the Haut-Rhin;
the under-Vosgean hills establish the link between the two units. This Vosgean Piedmont is occupied by the Alsatian vineyard.
the Sundgau , area of hills in the south of Mulhouse.
the the Alsatian Jura in the extreme-south of the area.

Geology

Alsace is the part of the plain of the Rhine located at the West of the Rhine, on its left bank. It is a trough fault, also called rift or graben, of age Oligocène, associated with its side shoulders: the Vosges and the Black Forest. The Massive of the Jura, formed by slip (induced by the alpine uplift) of the Mesozoic cover on the triassic formations (" savon" layers;) recut the area of Belfort.

the Rhenish ditch thus crumbled during the tertiary , consequently the area was several times invaded by the sea, which explains a varied sedimentation: Calcareous marl, , Rock salt, Marble. Moreover, with the Quaternary , wind deposits of Lœss take place.
Sundgau which was then a vast calcareous plate was covered by the secondary seas, at the beginning of the tertiary era. With the beginning of Oligocene, one witnesses a depression of the Rhenish ditch at the origin of the marine penetration. At the end of Oligocene, the sea is withdrawn definitively leaving deposits of very fine sediments. At the end of the tertiary sector and the beginning of quaternary surélèvement of the Vosges and Black Forest the formation of the Jura involves which is the result of several phases of crumplings, intersected by phases of erosion. The tablecloth of gravel of alpine origin that one finds in Sundgau is due to the very intense erosion of the Jura by the Rhine which, taken in a corridor then joined the current valley of Doubs. It is only the depression of the Rhenish ditch which modified the course of the Rhine and the hydrographic mode by the phenomena of capture.
the Vosges are made up in north by sandstone (Lorraine Plateau) and in the south by Granite; the granites are structures hercyniennes exhumed during the side risings united with the collapse of the rift.
the Jura, raised more tardily (with the Miocène) consists of limestones and marnes of generally Jurassic age, therefore much older than the formations of the alluvial plain of the Rhine.

The structure Tectonique of the basement (trough fault) explains some seismic activity.

Layers of Pétrole were exploited in north (with Pechelbronn, close to Niederbronn, one of the first layers in the world with being exploited, in 1740), as well as layers of Potasse dating from the Oligocène close to Mulhouse. Mines of money were also worked until the beginning of 20th century close to Holy-Marie-with-Mines.

Lastly, the fort géotherme, consequence of the mantellic increase which took place plumb with the rift, allow a geothermic exploitation experimental Soultz-under-Forests.

Demography

History

Economy

Culture

Gastronomy

Construction

The traditional habitat of the Alsatian plain consists of houses built with walls in Colombage and Torchis and roofs in tiles punts. Half-timbering and cobs meet, certainly, in other houses of France, but their particular abundance in Alsace is due to several reasons:

1°) the proximity of the Vosges made wood cheap and easy to trouver.
2°) Because of the seismic risk wood was adapted more than the stone because, more flexible, it resisted better.
3°) During the periods of war and of invasion the villages were often set fire to, which involved the collapse of the upper floors. This is why one had taken the practice to build out of stone the ground floors on which one rebuilt the top in half-timberings once the last storm. It is what explains why certain communes were raised so quickly as soon as peace had returned.

However apparent half-timberings worsened the fire hazards, this is why, as from the XIXe century one started to cover them with rough coat. It is only at one recent time that one started to release them; more recently still the Art schools required, to grant a subsidy, that the rough coat remaining was not painted in white, as one had been put to do it, but in varied colors, in order to return to the former use. The inhabitants followed, more for financial reasons that by conviction. In any case one is struck today by the difference between the villages Alsatian, now whitewashed, and the villages badois which face them and where the white always reigns as a Master.

Inheritance

Administration and social organization

Local right

In certain fields as hunting, associations, the religious worships, the social security, etc, the duty applied in Alsace, like in the Moselle, is a mixture of national right and local right.

After the period 1870-1918 during which Alsace was German certain Napoleonean laws were maintained into force and are remained applied; certain French laws carried out between 1870 and 1918, on the contrary, do not apply. It does not act thus, contrary to the generally accepted idea, of the maintenance of German laws.

For more details, to see the article local Right in Alsace and the Moselle.

Symbol

The Stork, bird to which certain legends told with the children allotted the contribution of the babies in the families. Almost disappeared there is about thirty years (1970), it was the subject of an associative strategy of effective repopulation. One finds some from now on on many roofs of the churches and other public edifices of Alsace and even sometimes on roofs of houses of private individuals.

Flag of Alsace

Heraldic

mouths with the money band accompanied by two cotices blossomed by same and accosted of six crowns of gold posed in orle, those of the point opposed to those of the chief.

This blazon is the meeting of that of the Low-Rhine (the money band accompanied by the two cotices blossomed by same on field of mouths) and of Haut-Rhin (the six crowns of gold posed in orle on field of mouths, the gold band being omitted)

Transport

See too

List of people born in Strasbourg
List of people having resided at Strasbourg

External bonds

Site of the District council Alsace
Tourism Alsace
Site of Alsatian the expats

Media

Films on Alsace

Alsace , film carried out by Henri Pouctal, 1916
the Alsatian ones or Both Mathilde , film carried out by Michel Favart, 1996
Müetter , film carried out by Dominique Lienhard, 2006
confidence reigns , film carried out by Etienne Chatiliez
My children are not like the others , film carried out by Denis Dercourt
the extraordinary Decade , film carried out by Claude Chabrol
Mr Klein , film carried out by Joseph Losey
Limes of Lautenbach , adaptation TV of the novel of Jean Egen carried out by Bernard Saint-Jacob, 1983
the Friend Fritz film TV of Jean-Louis Lorenzi, 2001; film TV of Georges Folgoas, 1967; film of Jacques de Baroncelli 1933; film of Rene Hervil, 1920

Films made to Alsace

the Great Illusion film of Jean Renoir, left in 1938 (with Jean Gabin, Erich von Stroheim, Pierre Fresnay, Marcel Dalio)
Indigenous , film of Rachid Bouchareb, left in room on September 27th 2006 (with Sami Bouajila, Jamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Roschdy Zem and Bernard Blancan)

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