Villars-les-Dombes

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Administration
Commune of Villars-les-Dombes
Country	France
Region	Rhône-Alpes
Department	Ain
Arrondissement	Bourg-en-Bresse
Canton	Villars-les-Dombes
Mayor	Lucien Berger (2001-2008)
Statistics
Land area¹	24.63 km²
Population² (1999)	4,250
- Density (1999)	172.6/km²
Miscellaneous
INSEE/Postal code	01443/ 01330
¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 mi² or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
² Population sans doubles comptes: single count of residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel).

Villars-les-Dombes is a commune in the French département of Ain and the Rhône-Alpes région. Its people are known as Villardois.

1 Geography
2 History
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Geography

The town is in the part of Ain which is half-way between Lyon (33 km) and Bourg-en-Bresse (29 km), in the heart of the area known as the Dombes, notable for its hundreds of lakes which are suited to fish -rearing as well as to water fowls. Its ornithological park around a couple of the lakes is closed at the moment owing to the incidence of avian flu at Joyeux, seven kilometres from Villars.

[edit] History

The lordship of Villars (of which archival evidence dates from 940) became, by marriage, the lordship of Thoire-et-Vilars in 1188, and in about 1400 its caput was Trévoux (the estate was managed from there). In 1565, Villars was promoted to a marquisate dependent on the house of Savoie (Savoy), a benefice of the Honour of Savoy.

In 1705, the maréchal de Villars obtained the collection of several lands, a small French enclave in the (German-influenced) province of Franche-Comté, as the duchy of Villars. His line died out in 1788, on the death of his son, Honoré-Armand, 2nd Duke de Villars.