Aubange (; german: Ibingen; lb, Éibeng; wa, Åbindje) is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality ...

and

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be de ...

Wallonia Wallonia (; french: Wallonie ), or ; nl, Wallonië ; wa, Waloneye or officially the Walloon Region (french: link=no, Région wallonne),; nl, link=no, Waals gewest; wa, link=no, Redjon walone is one of the three regions of Belgium—al ...

located in the

province of Luxembourg Luxembourg (french: Luxembourg ; nl, Luxemburg ; german: Luxemburg ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; wa, Lussimbork), also called Belgian Luxembourg, is the southernmost province of Wallonia and of Belgium. It borders on the country of Luxembourg to the ea ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

. On 1 January 2012 the municipality, which covers 45.6 km², had 16,042 inhabitants, giving a

population density Population density (in agriculture: Stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical ...

of 330.9 inhabitants per km². It is the third municipality of the Province of Luxembourg regarding the number of inhabitants but it is also among the smallest ones in terms of area. The municipality is

French-speaking French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in No ...

but most of which falls within the Luxembourgish-speaking

Arelerland The Land of Arlon (Luxembourgish/german: Arelerland, , ; french: Pays d'Arlon, ; Dutch: ''Land van Aarlen'' )In isolation, ''van'' is pronounced . is the traditionally Luxembourgish-speaking part of Belgian Lorraine, which is now predominantly ...

, adjoins the

tripoint A tripoint, trijunction, triple point, or tri-border area is a geographical point at which the boundaries of three countries or subnational entities meet. There are 175 international tripoints as of 2020. Nearly half are situated in rivers, l ...

where the borders of Belgium, the

Grand Duchy of Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small land ...

, and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

meet. The municipality consists of the following districts:

Athus Athus (german: Athem, lb, Attem, wa, Atu) is a part of Aubange city Wallonia and a district of the municipality of Aubange, located in the province of Luxembourg, Belgium. It is located in the far south of the country, just near the borders w ...

, Aubange, Halanzy, and Rachecourt.

History

The district of Aubange was a municipality itself before the reorganization of the Belgian municipalities in 1977. Even though the new municipality took the name ''Aubange'', the biggest place is Athus and it is where most of the services and official buildings are, like the townhall, the police station, the fire station, the post office, etc.

Geography

Aubange is located in the

Lorraine Lorraine , also , , ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; german: Lothringen ; lb, Loutrengen; nl, Lotharingen is a cultural and historical region in Northeastern France, now located in the administrative region of G ...

region in the south of

just next to

and the

Subdivisions

The municipality consists of the following sub-municipalities: Aubange proper,

, Halanzy, and Rachecourt. Other population centers include: Aix-sur-Cloie, Battincourt, and Guerlange.

Population

The following graph represents the growing of the population in the municipality since 1990. The village of Aubange itself contains about 4,000 inhabitants. Colors= id:f value:rgb(0.7,0.8,0.9) id:m value:gray(0.7) id:s value:gray(0.9) id:b value:white ImageSize = width:400 height:250 PlotArea = left:50 bottom:20 top:20 right:20 Period = from:0 till:16000 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:m increment:2500 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:s increment:500 start:0 BackgroundColors = canvas:b BarData= bar:1990 text:1990 bar:1995 text:1995 bar:2000 text:2000 bar:2004 text:2004 bar:2005 text:2005 bar:2006 text:2006 bar:2007 text:2007 bar:2008 text:2008 bar:2009 text:2009 bar:2010 text:2010 PlotData= color:f width:20 bar:1990 from:0 till:14238 bar:1995 from:0 till:14576 bar:2000 from:0 till:14663 bar:2004 from:0 till:14904 bar:2005 from:0 till:14937 bar:2006 from:0 till:15016 bar:2007 from:0 till:15193 bar:2008 from:0 till:15333 bar:2009 from:0 till:15624 bar:2010 from:0 till:15709

Economy

For a long time, Aubange has been linked with

siderurgy An ironworks or iron works is an industrial plant where iron is smelted and where heavy iron and steel products are made. The term is both singular and plural, i.e. the singular of ''ironworks'' is ''ironworks''. Ironworks succeeded bloome ...

. There were two big factories in

and in Halanzy and also a mine. But because of the concurrence of the foreign markets (especially the ones from

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...

and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

), siderurgy as not profitable anymore and all the factories closed one after another in the whole area. Now the politics have tried to found new ways to develop the economy. One of the most well-known activities is the Railway Containers Terminal of Athus which deals with thousands of containers each year from the big harbors of the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

like Antwerp and

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

to the inland of

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

Luxemburg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small land ...

Transports

There are three

railway stations A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing su ...

in the municipality: in

, in and in Halanzy. The municipality is located nearby the highway E411 which links

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

to Luxemburg City. It is situated at 30 kilometers from the capital of the Grand-Duchy and from its

international airport An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries around the world. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports and they must feature longer ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control Cities in Wallonia Articles which contain graphical timelines Belgium–France border crossings Belgium–Luxembourg border crossings Municipalities of Luxembourg (Belgium)