Eguisheim (; ; Alsatian: ''Egsa'') is a commune in the

Haut-Rhin Haut-Rhin (); Alsatian: ''Owerelsàss'' or '; , . is a department in the Grand Est region, France, bordering both Germany and Switzerland. It is named after the river Rhine; its name means Upper Rhine. Haut-Rhin is the smaller and less pop ...

department in

Grand Est Grand Est (; ) is an Regions of France, administrative region in northeastern France. It superseded three former administrative regions, Alsace, Champagne-Ardenne and Lorraine, on 1 January 2016 under the provisional name of Alsace-Champagne-A ...

in north-eastern

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. It lies in the historical region of

Alsace Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...

(). The village lies on the edge of the Ballons des Vosges Nature Park, where the Vosges meet the Upper Rhine Plain. Eguisheim is about from Colmar. The vineyards around Eguisheim produce Alsace wine of high quality. The village is ranked in the top 20 of

Les Plus Beaux Villages de France (, ) is an independent association created in 1982 for the promotion of the tourist appeal of small rural villages with a rich cultural heritage. As of 2024, it numbers 176 member villages (independent Communes of France, ''communes'' or part ...

. In May 2013 it was voted the 'Village préféré des Français' (Favorite French Village), an annual distinction that passes from town to town throughout France.

History

Human presence in the area as early as the

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...

age is testified by archaeological excavations. Two parts from a human skull (from the frontal and parietal bones) were found in 1865 and given to Charles-Frédéric Faudel, a physician in nearby Colmar, who carefully described the find and noted they were found undisturbed between animal bones, which allowed for a relative dating at a time when the very existence of prehistoric humans was still doubted. The find became known in France in 1867 through Paul Broca, and subsequently became a topic of discussion in the debate over what would become

paleoanthropology Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans, a process known as hominization, through the reconstruction of evolutionary kinsh ...

. Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau and Ernest Hamy, in their 1873 ''Crania ethnica'', grouped Eguisheim and others with the finds at Neanderthal and Naulette, creating a "race of Canstadt" that was so flexible that almost all fossil remains of humans would fit. Gustav Schwalbe (who first published on the skull in 1897), in a comparison with other skull fragments including those found in Spy, Belgium, concluded the skull was sufficiently different from

Neanderthal Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...

skulls and approached the measurements of modern humans. One reviewer cast some doubt on Schwalbe's comparison and argued that only the cranial vault was substantially different from the others, but this, he said, could have been a normal variation from the mean within a group. Later scholars seem to have accepted the identification of the skull as belonging to a Neanderthal, though Schwalbe again, in 1902, insisted on the difference between the Eguisheim and Neanderthal skulls. In 1904 Schwalbe proposed a species he called ''Homo primigenius'' for what at least one of his contemporaries called ''Home neandertalensis'', and excluded the Eguisheim skull from that category. In early historic times it was inhabited by the

Gaul Gaul () was a region of Western Europe first clearly described by the Roman people, Romans, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Northern Italy. It covered an area of . Ac ...

tribe of the

Senones The Senones or Senonii (Gaulish: "the ancient ones") were an ancient Gallic tribe dwelling in the Seine basin, around present-day Sens, during the Iron Age and the Roman period. Part of the Senones settled in the Italian peninsula, where the ...

; the Romans conquered the village and developed here the cultivation of wine. In the early Middle Ages, the Dukes of Alsace built a castle here (11th century) around which the current settlement developed.

Climate

Eguisheim has a climate that is principally oceanic being influenced by the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

, it is warm and temperate. It is rated as CfB on the Köppen-Geiger scale. Because Eguisheim is landinward temperatures in the summer regularly exceed . January is generally the coldest month, although the temperature occasionally drops below 0 °C, the average temperature is above freezing point. May and June are usually the wettest months of the year (there is rainfall almost every other day). June, July and August are the hottest months with the most sun. September is not extremely wet or hot, making it very suitable for the harvest of grapes.

Wine

Eguisheim has two areas which produce wine of exceptional quality, Eichberg (in English: Oak Mountain) and Pfersigberg (in English: Peach Mountain), characterised by the very hard

Muschelkalk The Muschelkalk (German for "shell-bearing limestone"; ) is a sequence of sedimentary rock, sedimentary rock strata (a lithostratigraphy, lithostratigraphic unit) in the geology of central and western Europe. It has a Middle Triassic (240 to 230 m ...

. Besides the usual-quality wines, Eguisheim produces Edelzwicker, Côte d'Eguisheim (a local high-end variety of Edelzwicker) and Gentil, all blends of the "noble" grapes grown locally.

Tourism

The village is a popular tourist destination, in part because the Alsace "Wine Route" passes the village. The village is close to Husseren-les-Châteaux and is in the middle of vineyards. The village is connected to Husseren-les-Châteaux by the Route du Vin (D14). Around the Route du Vin is a wine trail through the vineyards called ''Sentier viticole Eguisheim'', which tries to explain the different grape varieties and the way wine is made in

. The area around Eguisheim is popular with hikers and cyclists. There are many marked trails. Popular destinations are Les Trois Châteaux (in Husseren-les-Châteaux) and Château de Hagueneck. A little further away are Château du Hohlandsbourg and Château de Pflixbourg, which can be reached on foot or by car. The village is also a ''Village Cigogne d'Alsace'' (in Alsatian: Elsässisches Storckadorf), meaning that there are

stork Storks are large, long-legged, long-necked wading birds with long, stout bills. They belong to the family Ciconiidae, and make up the order Ciconiiformes . Ciconiiformes previously included a number of other families, such as herons and ibise ...

s in the village. Eguisheim has a park dedicated to the white stork (''Ciconia ciconia'') which is freely accessible.

Notable people

Leo IX (1002–1054), pope of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

from 12 February 1049 to his death in 1054. Eguisheim was his birthplace on 21 June 1002.Pope Leo IX on the Britannica website
/ref> At this time Eguisheim was German.

International relations

Eguisheim is twinned with * Hautvillers, France * La Louvière, Belgium * Hinterzarten, Germany * Castroville, Texas It has also friendship agreements with: * Aubusson, France *

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, Belgium * Tazewell, Tennessee, USA

Gallery

{{authority control Communes of Haut-Rhin Plus Beaux Villages de France Neanderthal sites Prehistoric sites in France