Espéraza

Commune in Occitanie, France

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (December 2008) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

View a machine-translated version of the French article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Espéraza]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Espéraza}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Commune in Occitania, France

Coat of arms

Location of Espéraza

(2020–2026) Christian Soula^[1]Area

10.52 km² (4.06 sq mi)Population

(2021)^[2]

1,703 • Density160/km² (420/sq mi)Time zoneUTC+01:00 (CET) • Summer (DST)UTC+02:00 (CEST)INSEE/Postal code

11129 /11260

Elevation229–480 m (751–1,575 ft)
(avg. 244 m or 801 ft)¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

Espéraza (French pronunciation: [ɛspeʁaza] ^ⓘ; Occitan: Esperasan) is a commune in the Aude department in southern France.

It lies on the Aude just north of the foothills of the Pyrenees.

Population

Historical population
Year	Pop.	±%
1962	2,593	—
1968	2,766	+6.7%
1975	2,529	−8.6%
1982	2,512	−0.7%
1990	2,250	−10.4%
1999	2,129	−5.4%
2008	2,101	−1.3%

History

The church was built during the 13th century.
One of the old pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela passes this way, through the mountains and on into Spain.
In the early 20th century, Espéraza was known for hat making. The town has a Hat Making Museum. Around 1815, the village experienced a considerable economic growth thanks to Bugarach hatters who settled there. First in 1830 and then in 1878 Espéraza enjoyed a prosperous period due to headwear, encouraged by the arrival of the railway. By 1929, there were 3000 Espéraza workers and 14 factories which allowed the village to become the second largest manufacturer of felt hats in the world (after Monza, Italy). But fashion had a terrible impact on the garment industry: the hat was worn less and less in the mid-20th century and Espéraza plunged into an economic depression. Now all that remains of the 14 Espéraza hat factories is a museum after the last factory burned down in 2002, although some have been converted to housing.
Since the late 20th century, Espéraza has become known for dinosaur fossil bones and eggs discovered in the area. These discoveries began at the end of the 19th century and excavations continue today and new species of dinosaurs continue to be found. Dinosauria, the local museum, exhibits these fossils along with life size reconstructions of dinosaurs.

References

^ "Répertoire national des élus: les maires". data.gouv.fr, Plateforme ouverte des données publiques françaises (in French). 9 August 2021.
^ "Populations légales 2021". The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies. 28 December 2023.