Bouillon

Bouillon
Bouillon
Location of Bouillon in Luxembourg
	; ; Bouillon Location in Belgium
Sovereign state	Belgium
Region	Wallonia
Community	French Community
Province	Luxembourg
Arrondissement	Neufchâteau
Coordinates	49°47.73′0″N 05°4.08′0″E / 49.7955, 5.068Coordinates: 49°47.73′0″N 05°4.08′0″E / 49.7955, 5.068
Area	149.09 km²
Population; – Males; – Females; – Density	5,464 (1 January 2010); 48.72%; 51.28%; 37 inhab./km²
Age distribution; 0–19 years; 20–64 years; 65+ years	(01/01/2006); 22.20%; 56.28%; 21.52%
Foreigners	5.94% (01/07/2005)
Unemployment rate	15.14% (1 January 2006)
Mean annual income	€10,594/pers. (2003)
Mayor	André Defat (ACTION)
Governing party/ies	DEES, UNION, ACTION
Postal codes	6830, 6831, 6832, 6833, 6834,; 6836, 6838
Area codes	061
Website	www.bouillon.be

For other uses, see Bouillon (disambiguation).

Bouillon (French pronunciation: [bu.jɔ̃]) is a commune in Belgium. It lies in the country's Walloon Region and Luxembourg Province.

The municipality, which covers 149.09 km², had 5,477 inhabitants, giving a population density of 36.7 inhabitants per km².

History[]

In the Middle Ages Bouillon was a lordship within the Duchy of Lower Lorraine and the principal seat of the Ardennes-Bouillon dynasty in the 10th and 11th century. In the 11th century they dominated the area, and held the ducal title along with many other titles in the region. Bouillon was the location of the ducal mint and the dominant urban concentration in the dukes' possession.^[1]

There is a common misconception that Bouillon was a County. While the lords of Bouillon often were counts and dukes, Bouillon itself was not a county. The fortification of Bouillon Castle was, along with the County of Verdun, the core of the possessions of the Ardennes-Bouillon dynasty, and their combined territory was a complex mixture of fiefs, allodial land and other hereditary rights throughout the area. An example of the latter is the Advocacy of the monastery of Saint-Hubert en Ardennes, which was granted to Godfrey II by the Bishop of Liège.^[2]

The most famous of the Lords of Bouillon was Godfrey of Bouillon, a leader of the First Crusade and the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He sold Bouillon Castle to the Bishopric of Liège. The bishops started to call themselves dukes of Bouillon, and the town emerged as the capital of a sovereign duchy by 1678, when it was captured from the bishopric by the French army and given to the La Tour d'Auvergne family. The duchy was prized for its strategic location as "the key to the Ardennes" (as Vauban called it) and hence to France itself. It remained a quasi-independent protectorate, like Orange and Monaco, until 1795, when the Republican Army finally annexed it to France.

Modern town[]

Bouillon has a few schools, a lycée (middle school) and a gymnasium (high school), banks and a square place.

The town sits in a sharp bend of the river Semois (German: Sesbach, Walloon: Simwès, in France : Semoy) whose total length is 210 km. The surrounding area is largely forested.

Bouillon Castle still sits above the town centre, and is a popular tourist attraction.

Villages[]

Bellevaux
Corbion
Dohan
La Cornette
Les Hayons
Poupehan
Rochehaut
Noirefontaine, Belgium
Sensenruth
Ucimont

Historical population[]

Year	Population	Area	Density
2002	5,393 (2,649 males and 2,744 females)	148.94 km²	36.21/km²

Notable people[]

Leon Degrelle

Notes[]

^ Murray, p. 10.
^ Murray, p. 11.

References[]

Murray, Alan V. (2000). The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. A Dynastic History 1099-1125.. Prosopographica et Genealogica. ISBN 1-900934-03-5.

External links[]

Template:Municipalities in Luxembourg

This page uses content from the English language Wikipedia. The original content was at Bouillon. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with this Familypedia wiki, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons License.

[murray-10-1] Murray, p. 10.

[2] Murray, p. 11.

[1]

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