was born in the village of Domrémy, then in the French part of the duchy of Bar, or Barrois mouvant, located west of the Meuse. The part of the duchy lying east of the Meuse was part of the Holy Roman Empire. The duchy of Bar later became part of the province of Lorraine. The village of Domrémy was renamed Domrémy-la-Pucelle in honour of Joan.
French revolution
The Vosges department is one of the original 83 departments of France, created on February 9, 1790 during the French Revolution. It was made of territories that had been part of the province of Lorraine. In German it is referred to as Vogesen. In 1793 the independent principality of Salm-Salm, enclosed inside the Vosges department, was annexed to France and incorporated into Vosges. In 1795 the area of Schirmeck was detached from the Bas-Rhin department and incorporated into the Vosges department. The Vosges department had now an area of 6,127 km² which it kept until 1871. In 1794 the Vosges was the site of a major battle between the forces of Revolutionary France and the Allied Coalition. See Battle of Trippstadt. The Place des Vosges in Paris was so renamed in 1799 when the department became the first to pay the new Revolutionary taxes.
After the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, 4% of the Vosges department in the extreme northeast of the department was annexed to the German Empire by the Treaty of Frankfurton the ground that the people there spoke Germanic dialects. The area annexed on May 18, 1871 corresponded to the canton of Schirmeck and the northern half of the canton of Saales. Schirmeck and Saales had been historically part of Alsace. These territories, along with the rest of Alsace and the annexed territories of Lorraine, became part of the Reichsland of Elsaß-Lothringen. The area of the Vosges department was thus reduced to its current 5,874 km².
The largest cities/towns are Épinal, Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, Gérardmer, on the lake of the same name, and Remiremont. A total population of 378,830 inhabitants was recorded in the 2011 census. The population is split with 70% in urban areas and 30% living in rural districts. Roughly 47% of the department is covered by woodlands and forests, while 38% of land is in agricultural use. The remaining 13% is commercial, industrial and residential. While the west part of the Vosges is flat sedimentary land, the east is dominated by the Vosges Mountain range of which the Grand Ballon at 1424m is the highest peak. The Monts Faucilles traverse the south of the department in a broad curve declining on the north into elevated plateaus, on the south encircling the upper basin of the River Saône. This chain, dividing the basins of the Rhône and the Rhine, forms part of the European watershed between the basins of the Mediterranean and Atlantic. The Saône rises at Vioménil, in the Vosges. The Anger river also passes through it.
Demographics
Population development since 1801:
Culture
The Romanfortified town of Grand, located 30 km from Toul, has an amphitheatre and a temple to the Cult of Apollo. At La Bure, located a few kilometres from Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, archaeologists have found evidence for human habitation going back to around 2000 BC.
Séré de Rivières">Séré de Rivières system">Séré de Rivières forts
As a border area, the Vosges region was a route for possible invasion. As such four important forts were constructed in the department: Bourlémont Fort in Mont-les-Neufchâteau ; Uxegney Fort ; Bois l'Abbé Fort ; and the Le Parmont Fort in Remiremont.
