Country France Canton Embrun Time zone CET (UTC+1) Population 6,152 (1999) Arrondissement Gap | Department Hautes-Alpes Intercommunality Embrun Area 36.39 km² Local time Thursday 10:53 PM | |
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Region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Weather 7°C, Wind NE at 2 km/h, 70% Humidity Points of interest Durance, Embrun Cathedral, Tour Brune, Brady Michel | ||
Embrun (Occitan: Ambrun, Latin: Ebrodunum, Ebrudunum, and Eburodunum) is a commune in the Hautes-Alpes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.
Contents
Map of 05200 Embrun, France
Description
It is located between Gap and Briançon and at the eastern end of one of the largest artificial lakes in Western Europe: the Lac de Serre-Ponçon.
The Canadian town of Embrun, Ontario was named after Embrun in 1856.
History
Embrun was formerly known as Ebrodunum (Ἐβρόδουνον in Greek language sources). There is some variation in the writing of the first part of the name. It is Epebrodunum in Strabo's text, but later translators corrected it. Strabo (iv.) says that from Tarasco to the borders of the Vocontii and the beginning of the ascent of the Alps, through the Druentia and Caballio, is 63 miles; and from thence to the other boundaries of the Vocontii, to the kingdom of Cottius (the Alpes Cottiae), to the village of Ebrodunum, 99 miles. Ebrodunum was in the civitas (tribal state) of the Caturiges, and just on the borders of the Vocontii, as it appears.
The position of Ebrodunum is easily determined by the itineraries and the name. Ptolemy (iii. 1) mentions Eborodunum as the city of the Caturiges, and no other. In the Jerusalem Itinerary Ebrodunum is called Mansio, like Caturiges (modern Chorges), which was also in the territory of the Caturiges. There are Roman remains at Chorges, and none are mentioned at Embrun, though it appears that the cathedral of Embrun is built on the site of a Roman temple, or that some of the materials of a temple were used for it.
Ebrodunum was, for a time, the capital of the Roman province of Alpes Maritimae.
In the feudal age, it was an important (archi)episcopal see.
In stage 17 of the 2013 Tour de France, Embrun was the starting point for an individual time trial.
Ecclesiastical history
Embrun was the see of a bishopric since the fourth century, which became a Metropolitan archbishopric in the fourteenth and was suppressed in the French Revolution.