Landgraviate of Sundgau | ||||||||||
Landgrafschaft Sundgau (de) Landgraviat Sundgau (fr) |
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State of the Holy Roman Empire | ||||||||||
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Capital | Altkirch | |||||||||
Government | Principality | |||||||||
Historical era | Middle Ages | |||||||||
• | Alsace partitioned in twain | 750 | ||||||||
• | Landgraviate established | 900 | ||||||||
• | To Habsburgs | 1135 | ||||||||
• | Sold to France | 1648 | ||||||||
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Sundgau (French pronunciation: [suŋˈɡo],German: [ˈzʊntɡaʊ]) is a geographical territory in the southern Alsace region (Haut Rhin and Belfort), on the eastern edge of France. The name is derived from Alemannic German Sunt-gowe ("South shire"), denoting an Alemannic county in the Old High German period. The principal city and historical capital is Altkirch.
The considerably smaller French pays of Sundgau, implemented by the 1999 Loi Voynet, roughly corresponds to the arrondissement of Altkirch, comprising four cantons and 112 communes in the south of the larger Sundgau region.
The hilly region is bounded on the south by the Swiss border and the foothills of the Jura, in the east by the valley of the Rhine in the vicinity of Basel, to the north by Mulhouse and the potassium-rich basin of Alsace, and to the west by the Belfort Gap. It comprises parts of the modern Department of Haut-Rhin and the Territory of Belfort in the regions of Alsace and the Franche-Comté.