Le Grau-du-Roi (; oc, Lo Grau dau Rei) is a

commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...

in the

Gard Gard () is a department in Southern France, located in the region of Occitanie. It had a population of 748,437 as of 2019;department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

in southern France. It is the only commune in Gard to have a frontage on the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

. To the west is the Herault department and La Grande-Motte village, and to the east is the Bouches-du-Rhone department. Using the sea as a vantage point, the commune has four distinct sections: the right beach (Plage de Rive Droite), the Village, the left beach (Plage de Rive Gauche), Port-Camargue and L'Espiguette. Immediately landwards are the large shallow ''étangs'', saline marshes, which separate it from

Aigues Mortes Aigues-Mortes (; oc, Aigas Mòrtas) is a commune in the Gard department in the Occitania region of southern France. The medieval city walls surrounding the city are well preserved. Situated on the junction of the Canal du Rhône à Sète an ...

, a neighboring mediaeval walled city that used to be a port. The ''étangs'' are home to numerous

flamingo Flamingos or flamingoes are a type of Wader, wading bird in the Family (biology), family Phoenicopteridae, which is the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes. There are four flamingo species distributed throughout the Americas ...

es.

Etymology

Le Grau-du-Roi comes from the

Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts ...

word ''grau'' (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''gradus''), which refers to the opening of an étang (shallow saline lake), or the watercourse from an etang into the sea. It is roughly equivalent to the usage of the English term

bayou In usage in the Southern United States, a bayou () is a body of water typically found in a flat, low-lying area. It may refer to an extremely slow-moving stream, river (often with a poorly defined shoreline), marshy lake, wetland, or creek. They ...

. ''Roi'' is the French word for King. Aigues-Mortes means literally 'dead water', ''aigues'' coming from the Latin ''aqua''.

Geography

Le Grau-du-Roi is south of Aigues-Mortes, in the Gard department. It is in the

canton of Aigues-Mortes The canton of Aigues-Mortes is an administrative division of the Gard department, southern France. Its borders were modified at the French canton reorganisation which came into effect in March 2015. Its seat is in Aigues-Mortes. Communes The can ...

. It is separated from Aigues-Mortes by a series of saline marshes, called ''étangs'' in French, and a bend in the river

Vidourle The Vidourle (; ''Vidorle'' in occitan) is a river in southern France that flows into the Mediterranean Sea in Le Grau-du-Roi. Its source is in the Cévennes mountains, northwest of Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort, at Saint-Roman-de-Codières. It fl ...

. The ''étangs'' are named as follows: l'étang du Ponant, l'étang du Médard, l'étang du Repausset Levant, and the lac de Salonique, which is a lake rather than a marsh, as its name suggests. To the west of the town, the coastal strip is breached where the

empties into the Mediterranean, and to the east is that of the Petit Rhone. The course of these two rivers has been subject to change and reversal. The Rhone used to flow into the ''étangs'' further to the west and at one point, the Vidourle flowed into it rather than the sea, The route in the 12th century was through the Grau Louis and the Old Channel. In 1570, a new breach occurred at a point called Gagne-Petit. It is around this grau that the settlement was formed. The area between the ''étangs'' and the sea was settled by Italian immigrants at the end of the 19th century. From then until the 1920s, the economy was based entirely on fishing, but tourism later became important, culminating in the construction of Port-Camargue. Le Grau-du-Roi station has rail connections to Nîmes. The modern-day resort town benefits from 18 km of fine sand beaches, with sand dunes on the Pointe de Éspiguette forming an important wildlife habitat. The ''étangs'' are noted for their birds, which include

es.

Climate

Le Grau-du-Roi has a

hot-summer Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...

( Köppen climate classification ''Csa''). The average annual temperature in Le Grau-du-Roi is . The average annual rainfall is with October as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in July, at around , and lowest in January, at around . The highest temperature ever recorded in Le Grau-du-Roi was on 16 August 1987; the coldest temperature ever recorded was on 12 January 1987.

History

The city of

Aigues-Mortes Aigues-Mortes (; oc, Aigas Mòrtas) is a commune in the Gard department in the Occitania region of southern France. The medieval city walls surrounding the city are well preserved. Situated on the junction of the Canal du Rhône à Sète a ...

gained importance during the crusades when it was a royal port.Website History of Port Camargue
King Louis IX of France had no other port available to him on the Mediterranean. Ships docked alongside the ramparts of the city and passed through a circuitous channel, (the Old Channel) through the Étang de Repausset to the sea at Grau Louis ( La Grande Motte). In 1570, a storm surge from the Rhone entered the etang and breached the coastal strip forming a new grau. A six-kilometre channel was created from the city directly to the sea. In 1640 this was named the Grau du Roi, and although the name changed several times afterwards, it eventually reverted to its current name. In 1772 two breakwaters were constructed out of stone. After much subsequent work, it became a canal in 1845. There was an old lighthouse in the village which got a new copper lantern in 1828, and a second was constructed at l´Espiguette in 1867. The village, based around fishing cottages, gained administrative buildings and was recognised as a section of Aigues-Mortes in 1867, becoming a separate commune in 1879. The village of fishers and farmers turned to tourism at the end of the 19th century, with the extension of the Nîmes Aigues-Mortes railway line in 1909: bathers arrived en masse, and on the 26 April 1924 the French President of the Republic decreed that Le Grau-du-Roi was a "station climatique et balnéaire" (beach resort town). The rail line enabled local producers to market their white grapes and fish nationally. World War II affected the village profoundly. Axis troops were stationed in the village, and the local council dissolved. By 1942, many of the inhabitants had fled: the coast was on the front line and bristled with tank traps and minefields. The village was controlled by

blockhouse A blockhouse is a small fortification, usually consisting of one or more rooms with loopholes, allowing its defenders to fire in various directions. It is usually an isolated fort in the form of a single building, serving as a defensive stron ...

s, and the canal was shut off. Wood from houses was used to build defences. Le Grau-du-Roi was liberated in August 1944, and the coast started to rebuild, with a focus on tourism. The effort was coordinated by the plan Racine. Architect Jean Balladur was put in charge, and he designed structures capable of supporting a large number of tourists, while also supporting the local way of life and environment. Part of the plan included the new marina at Port-Camargue. This was launched in 1968 and finished in 1985.

Sports

The local

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ca ...

club in Le Grau-du-Roi is Émulation Sportive du Grau-du-Roi. They are an amateur team, and play at the Stade Michel Mézy (named after Michel Mézy) in the town.

International relations

Le Grau-du-Roi is twinned with: *

Dossenheim Dossenheim () is a municipality in the Rhein-Neckar-Kreis (district) in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on Bergstraße and Bertha Benz Memorial Route. Geography Location Dossenheim lies 5 kilometers north of Heidelberg along the B ...

, Germany

Notable people

* , 18th-century Royal engineer *

Michèle Torr Michèle Torr (born Michelle Cléberte Tort 7 April 1947) is a French singer and author, best known in non-Francophone countries for her participation in the Eurovision Song Contest for Luxembourg in 1966 and for Monaco in 1977. Early career ...

(born 1947), singer and author * Stéphane Mellino, member of the band

Les Négresses Vertes Les Négresses Vertes, which formed in 1987, is a French music group that combines world music and some aspects of alternative rock. Tracks often feature acoustic guitar and accordion, with some containing other traditional instruments such as ...

Jean-Pierre Cassel Jean-Pierre Cassel (born Jean-Pierre Crochon; 27 October 1932 – 19 April 2007) was a French actor. Early life Cassel was born Jean-Pierre Crochon in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, the son of Louise-Marguerite (née Fabrègue), an opera sin ...

(1932–2007), actor * Michel Mézy (born 1948), footballer * François Vérove (died 2021), serial killer

Population

Literary references

The first part of

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...

's ''

The Garden of Eden In Abrahamic religions The Abrahamic religions are a group of religions centered around worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch, is extensively mentioned throughout Abrahamic religious scriptures such as the Bible and th ...

'' is set in Le Grau-du-Roi. He writes of Le Grau-du-Roi: :"This is a fine place below Aigues Mortes on the Camargue and the Mediterranean with a long beach and a fine fishing port." ::''Ernest Hemingway, 27 Mai 1927 (correspondance à Maxwell Perkins)'' Le Grau-du-Roi is mentioned in passing in the novel "Perfume" by Patrick Suskind published in 1985 as a place the anti-hero Grenouille passes through

Gallery

file:LeGrau1.JPG file:LeGrau4.JPG file:LeGrau5.JPG File:Le grau du Roi-Mairie-20150607.jpg, Hôtel de Ville File:Le Grau du Roi-Maison au triton-20140711.jpg, La maison du Dauphin