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Gergovie (in auvergnat Gergòia) is a French village in the commune of La Roche-Blanche in the Puy-de-Dôme département, a few kilometres south of Clermont-Ferrand.
Map of Gergovie, 63670 La Roche-Blanche, France
It is situated at the foot of the Gergovie plateau, the official but disputed site of the Battle of Gergovia, where — near to the Arverni oppidum of Nemossos (a sacred wood, in Gaulish) — the Arverni and other Gallic tribes gathered under Vercingetorix's command to fight the Roman legions of Julius Caesar in 52 BC.
The village was known as Merdogne until 1865, when it successfully petitioned the emperor Napoleon III to change the name to Gergovie, because the site of the Gauls' victory over Caesar was a more glorious name than one that resembled a vulgarity (merde).
References
Gergovie Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA