Alsace (French French is a Romance language spoken as a first language by about 136 million people worldwide. Around 190 million people speak French as a second language, and an additional 200 million speak it as an acquired foreign language. French speaking communities are present in 57 countries and territories. Most native speakers of the language live in: Alsace [alzas]; Alsatian Alsatian (Alsatian and Alemannic German: Elsässerditsch ; French: Alsacien; German: Elsässisch or Elsässerdeutsch) is a Low Alemannic German dialect spoken in most of Alsace, a region in eastern France which has passed between French and German control many times: Elsàss [ˈɛlzɔs]; German German (Deutsch, [ˈdɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Globally, German is spoken by approximately 120 million native speakers and also by about 80 million non-native speakers: Elsass, pre-1996 The German orthography reform of 1996 is based on an international agreement signed in Vienna in July 1996 by the governments of the German-speaking countries of Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. Luxembourg, in which German is one of the three official languages, regarded itself "as a non-German-speaking country not to be a: Elsaß, IPA: [ˈɛlzas]; Latin Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. With the Roman conquest, Latin was spread to countries around the Mediterranean, including a large part of Europe. Romance languages such as Aragonese, Corsican, Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Sardinian, Spanish and others, are descended from Latin, while: Alsatia) is the fourth-smallest of the 26 regions of France France is administratively divided into 26 regions , of which 22 are on Metropolitan France, and four are overseas. Corsica is a territorial collectivity (French: collectivité territoriale), but is considered a region in mainstream usage, and is even shown as such on the INSEE Web site. Each mainland region and Corsica are further subdivided into in land area (8,280 km²), and the smallest in metropolitan France Metropolitan France is the part of France located in Europe, including Corsica. It can also be described as mainland France or as the French mainland and the island of Corsica. By contrast, Overseas France (la France d'outre-mer, or l'Outre-mer, or colloquially les DOM-TOM) is the collective name for the French overseas departments (départements. It is also the sixth-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km² (total population in 2006: 1,815,488; January 1, 2008 estimate: 1,836,000). Alsace is located on France France is a founding member state of the European Union and is the largest one by area. France has been a major power for several centuries with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and in the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America; during the 19th and early 20th's eastern border and on the west bank of the upper Rhine The Rhine is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe, at about 1,232 km (766 mi), with an average discharge of more than 2,000 m3/s (71,000 cu ft/s) adjacent to Germany A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, has been known and documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted until 1806. During the 16th century, northern Germany became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. As a modern nation-state, and Switzerland Switzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation (Confœderatio Helvetica in Latin, hence its ISO country codes CH and CHE), is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe[note 4] where it is bordered by Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy to. The political, economic and cultural capital as well as largest city of Alsace is Strasbourg Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in north-eastern France. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin department. In 2006, the city proper had 272,975 inhabitants and its urban community 467,375 inhabitants. With 638,670 inhabitants in 2006, Strasbourg's metropolitan area ("aire. Due to that city being the seat of dozens of international organizations and bodies There are a range of European Institutions in Strasbourg , the oldest of which dates back to 1815. In all, there are more than twenty different institutions based in the Alsatian city. Due to this concentration Strasbourg is a claimant to the title of "capital of Europe", Alsace is politically one of the most important regions in the European Union The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 member states which are located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993 upon the foundations of the European Communities. With over 500 million citizens, the EU combined generated an estimated 28% share (US$ 16.5.

The name "Alsace" derives from the Germanic The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all the languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe. Proto-Germanic, along with all of its descendants, is characterized by a Ell-sass, meaning "Seated on the Ill The Ill is a river in Alsace, in north-eastern France. It is a left-side, or western tributary of the Rhine",^[2] a river in Alsace. The region was historically part of the Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire (HRE; German: Heiliges Römisches Reich , Latin: Imperium Romanum Sacrum (IRS), Italian: Sacro Romano Impero (SRI)) was for about a millennium a realm in Central Europe under a Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in. It was gradually annexed by France France is a founding member state of the European Union and is the largest one by area. France has been a major power for several centuries with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and in the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America; during the 19th and early 20th in the 17th century under kings Louis XIII Louis XIII was King of France and Navarre from 1610 to 1643. Along with his First Minister Cardinal Richelieu, Louis "the Just" is remembered for the establishment of the Académie française and participation in the Thirty Years' War against the House of Habsburg. France's greatest victory in the war came at the Battle of Rocroi, five and Louis XIV Louis XIV , known as the Sun King (French: le Roi Soleil), was King of France and of Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days, and is the longest documented reign of any European monarch and made one of the provinces of France The Kingdom of France was organised into provinces until March 4, 1790, when the establishment of the département system superseded provinces. The change was an attempt to eradicate local loyalties based on feudal ownership of land and focus all loyalty on the central government in Paris. Alsace is frequently mentioned in conjunction with Lorraine Lorraine is one of the 26 régions of France. The administrative region has two cities of equal importance, Metz and Nancy. Metz is considered to be the official capital since that is where the regional parliament is situated. The region's name is derived from the medieval Lotharingia, because German possession of parts of these two régions (as the imperial province Alsace-Lorraine Alsace-Lorraine was a territorial entity created by the German Empire in 1871 after the annexation of most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and on the east of the Vosges Mountains. The Lorraine section was in the upper Moselle, 1871–1918) was contested in the 19th and 20th centuries, during which Alsace changed hands four times between France and Germany in 75 years.

Although the historical language of Alsace is Alsatian Alsatian (Alsatian and Alemannic German: Elsässerditsch ; French: Alsacien; German: Elsässisch or Elsässerdeutsch) is a Low Alemannic German dialect spoken in most of Alsace, a region in eastern France which has passed between French and German control many times, a Germanic language, today most Alsatians speak French French is a Romance language spoken as a first language by about 136 million people worldwide. Around 190 million people speak French as a second language, and an additional 200 million speak it as an acquired foreign language. French speaking communities are present in 57 countries and territories. Most native speakers of the language live in, the official language of the country they have been a part of for most of the past three centuries. About 39% of the adult population, and probably less than 10% of the children, are fluent in Alsatian. There is therefore a substantial bilingual population in contemporary Alsace. ^[3] The place names used in this article are in French. See this list for the original German place names Below is a list of German language endonyms for towns and village in the Alsace region of France , which had been predominantly populated by German-speaking peoples since the 6th century.

History

Roman Alsace

In prehistoric times, Alsace was inhabited by nomadic hunters, but by 1500 BC, Celts The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages began to settle in Alsace, clearing and cultivating the land. By 58 BC, the Romans Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world had invaded and established Alsace as a center of viticulture Viticulture is the science, production and study of grapes which deals with the series of events that occur in the vineyard. When the grapes are used for winemaking, it is also known as viniculture. It is one branch of the science of horticulture. To protect this highly valued industry, the Romans built fortifications and military camps that evolved into various communities which have been inhabited continuously to the present day. While part of the Roman Empire The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor, Augustus, Alsace was part of Germania Superior Germania Superior , so called for the reason that it lay upstream of Germania Inferior, was a province of the Roman Empire. It comprised the area of western Switzerland, the French Jura and Alsace regions and south-western Germany. Important cities were Besançon (Besontio), Strasbourg (Argentoratum), Wiesbaden (Aquae Mattiacae) and Germania.

Frankish Alsace

With the decline of the Roman Empire The decline of the Roman Empire refers to both the gradual disintegration of the economy of Rome and the barbarian invasions that were its final doom. The English historian Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire made this concept part of the framework of the English language, but he was not the first to speculate on why, Alsace became the territory of the Alemanni The Alamanni, Allemanni, or Alemanni were originally an alliance of Germanic tribes located around the upper Rhine river . One of the earliest references to them is the cognomen Alamannicus assumed by Roman Emperor Caracalla, who ruled the Roman Empire from 211–17 and claimed thereby to be their defeater. The nature of this alliance and their. The Alemanni were agricultural people, and their language formed the basis of the modern-day Alsatian dialect. Clovis Clovis was the first King of the Franks to unite all the Frankish tribes under one ruler. He was also the first Catholic King to rule over Gaul (France). He was the son of Childeric I and Basina. In 481, when he was fifteen, he succeeded his father. The Salian Franks were one of two Frankish tribes who were then occupying the area west of the and the Franks The Franks were a West Germanic tribal confederation first attested in the third century as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a kingdom on Roman-held soil that was acknowledged by the defeated the Alemanni during the 5th century, culminating with the Battle of Tolbiac The Battle of Tolbiac was fought between the Franks under Clovis I and the Alamanni, traditionally set in 496. The site of "Tolbiac", or "Tulpiacum" is usually given as Zülpich, North Rhine-Westphalia, about 60km east of the present German-Belgian frontier, which is not implausible. The Franks were successful at Tolbiac and, and Alsace became part of the Kingdom of Austrasia Austrasia , formed the north-eastern portion of the Kingdom of the Merovingian Franks, comprising parts of the territory of present-day eastern France, western Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Metz served as its capital, although some Austrasian kings ruled from Rheims, Trier, and Cologne also. Austrasia was also used as a term. Under Clovis' Merovingian The Merovingians were a Salian Frankish dynasty that came to rule the Franks in a region (known as Francia in Latin) largely corresponding to ancient Gaul from the middle of the fifth century. Their politics involved frequent civil warfare among branches of the family. During the final century of the Merovingian rule, the dynasty was increasingly successors the inhabitants were Christianized. Alsace remained under Frankish control until the Frankish realm Francia or Frankia, later also called the Frankish Empire , Frankish Kingdom (Latin: regnum Francorum, "Kingdom of the Franks"), Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland (Persian: فرنگستان, Frangistan, "Land of the Franks"), was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century. Under the, following the Oaths of Strasbourg The Oaths of Strasbourg were several historical documents which included mutual pledges of allegiance between Louis the German , ruler of East Francia, and his (half-)brother Charles the Bald (d. 877), ruler of West Francia. The several pledges were spoken at a strategic meeting in 842 at Strasbourg, with the brothers' assembled armies in of 842, was formally dissolved in 843 at the Treaty of Verdun The Treaty of Verdun was a treaty of the three surviving sons of Louis the Pious, the son and successor of Charlemagne, which divided the territories of the Carolingian Empire to three kingdoms; the grandsons of Charlemagne Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans (Imperator Romanorum) from 800 to his death. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800. This temporarily made divided the realm into three parts. Alsace formed part of the Middle Francia Middle Francia was an ephemeral Frankish kingdom created by the Treaty of Verdun in 843. It was created by the union of the Kingdom of Italy and the region of Provence with some territories north of the Alps that later became Lotharingia. It was that portion of the Frankish empire that fell to its nominal Emperor, Lothair I, after intermittent, which was ruled by the youngest grandson Lothar I Lothair I or Lothar I (795 – 29 September 855) was the Emperor of the Romans (817–55), co-ruling with his father until 840, and the King of Bavaria (815–17), Italy (818–55) and Middle Francia (840–55). Lothar died early in 855 and his realm was divided into three parts. The part known as Lotharingia Lotharingia was a region in northwest Europe, comprising the Low Countries, the western Rhineland, the lands today on the border between France and Germany, and what is now western Switzerland. It was born of the tripartite division in 855 of the kingdom of Middle Francia, itself formed of the threefold division of the Carolingian Empire by the, or Lorraine, was given to Lothar's son. The rest was shared between Lothar's brothers Charles the Bald Charles the Bald , Holy Roman Emperor (875–877, as Charles II) and King of West Francia (840–877, as Charles II, with the borders of his land defined by the Treaty of Verdun, 843), was the youngest son of the Emperor Louis the Pious by his second wife Judith (ruler of the West Frankish West Francia or the West Frankish Kingdom was a short-lived kingdom encompassing the lands of the western part of the Carolingian Empire that came under the undisputed control of Charlemagne's grandson, Charles the Bald, as a result of the Treaty of Verdun of 843 realm) and Louis the German Louis the German (also known as Louis II or Louis the Bavarian) (806 – 28 August 876), was a grandson of Charlemagne and the third son of the succeeding Frankish Emperor Louis the Pious and his first wife, Ermengarde of Hesbaye (ruler of the East Frankish East Francia (Regnum Francorum orientalium), known variously as Francia Orientalis or the Kingdom of the East Franks, was the realm allotted to Louis the German by the 843 Treaty of Verdun. It is the precursor of the Holy Roman Empire realm). The Kingdom of Lotharingia was short-lived, however; the region that was to become Alsace fell to the Holy Roman Empire as part of the Duchy of Swabia in the Treaty of Meersen in 870.

Alsace within the Holy Roman Empire

At about this time the entire region began to fragment into a number of feudal secular and ecclesiastical lordships, a situation which lasted into the 17th century and was a common process in Europe. Alsace experienced great prosperity during the 12th and 13th centuries under Hohenstaufen emperors. Frederick I set up Alsace as a province (a procuratio, not a provincia) to be ruled by ministeriales, a non-noble class of civil servants. The idea was that such men would be more tractable and less likely to alienate the fief from the crown out of their own greed. The province had a single provincial court (Landgericht) and a central administration with its seat at Hagenau. Frederick II designated the Bishop of Strasbourg to administer Alsace, but the authority of the bishop was challenged by Count Rudolph of Habsburg, who received his rights from Frederick II's son Conrad IV. Strasbourg began to grow to become the most populous and commercially-important town in the region. In 1262, after a long struggle with the ruling bishops, its citizens gained the status of free imperial city. A stop on the Paris-Vienna-Orient trade route, as well as a port on the Rhine route linking southern Germany and Switzerland to the Netherlands, England and Scandinavia, it became the political and economic center of the region. Cities such as Colmar and Hagenau also began to grow in economic importance and gained a kind of autonomy within the "Decapole" or "Dekapolis", a federation of ten free towns.

The prosperity of Alsace was terminated in the 14th century by a series of harsh winters, bad harvests, and the Black Death. These hardships were blamed on Jews, leading to the pogroms of 1336 and 1339. An additional natural disaster was the Rhine rift earthquake of 1356, one of Europe's worst which made ruins of Basel. Prosperity returned to Alsace under Habsburg administration during the Renaissance.

German central power had begun to decline following years of imperial adventures in Italian lands, ceding hegemony in Europe to France, which had long since centralized power. France began an aggressive policy of expanding eastward, first to the Rhône and Meuse Rivers, and when those borders were reached, aiming for the Rhine. In 1299, the French proposed a marriage alliance between Philip IV of France's sister and Albert I of Germany's son, with Alsace to be the dowry; however, the deal never came off. In 1307, the town of Belfort was first chartered by the Counts of Montbéliard. During the next century, France was to be militarily shattered by the Hundred Years' War, which prevented for a time any further tendencies in this direction. After the conclusion of the war, France was again free to pursue its desire to reach the Rhine and in 1444 a French army appeared in Lorraine and Alsace. It took up winter quarters, demanded the submission of Metz and Strasbourg and launched an attack on Basel.

In 1469, following the Treaty of St. Omer, Upper Alsace was sold by Archduke Sigismund of Austria to Charles of Burgundy. Although Charles was the nominal landlord, taxes were paid to Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor. The latter was able to use this tax and a dynastic marriage to his advantage to gain back full control of Upper Alsace (apart from the free towns, but including Belfort) in 1477 when it became part of the demesne of the Habsburg family, who were also rulers of the empire. The town of Mulhouse joined the Swiss Confederation in 1515, where it was to remain until 1798.

By the time of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, Strasbourg was a prosperous community, and its inhabitants accepted Protestantism in 1523. Martin Bucer was a prominent Protestant reformer in the region. His efforts were countered by the Roman Catholic Habsburgs who tried to eradicate heresy in Upper Alsace. As a result, Alsace was transformed into a mosaic of Catholic and Protestant territories. On the other hand, Mömpelgard (Montbéliard) to the southwest of Alsace, belonging to the Counts of Württemberg since 1397, remained a Protestant enclave in France until 1793.

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