Soultz-sous-Forêts

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:Soultz-sous-Forêts]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Soultz-sous-Forêts}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Commune in Grand Est, France

Coat of arms

Location of Soultz-sous-Forêts

(2020–2026) Christophe Schimpf^[1]Area

15.15 km² (5.85 sq mi)Population

(2021)^[2]

3,147 • Density210/km² (540/sq mi)Time zoneUTC+01:00 (CET) • Summer (DST)UTC+02:00 (CEST)INSEE/Postal code

67474 /67250

Elevation137–508 m (449–1,667 ft)¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

Soultz-sous-Forêts (French pronunciation: [sults su fɔʁɛ]; German: Sulz unterm Wald) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France.^[3]

The French revolution

In December 1788 Mary de Bode who had been born in England and her German born husband Baron de Bode arrived in Soultz-sous-Forêts. The Baron was given the fiefdom of Soultz-sous-Forêts by the Archbishop of Cologne (Maximilian Franz of Austria). Mary described Soultz-sous-Forêts as a land "flowing with corn and oil and wine."^[4]

They hoped that the French Revolution would not affect them, but at the end of 1794 the Baron and Baroness de Bode moved out of the town, before they mistakenly returned. They were lucky to make a quick escape over the mountains, but they left all their riches and five of their children behind them.^[5]

Interestingly, Clement, one of their sons, and his son tried unsuccessfully, for seventy years, to regain the rights and riches they lost in the 1790s.^[4] In June 1854, the case of the de Bode family was debated in the British Houses of Parliament after it was introduced by Montague Chambers, recommending that France should be obliged to award compensation.^[6]

Population

Historical population
Year	Pop.	±% p.a.
1968	2,159	—
1975	2,208	+0.32%
1982	2,289	+0.52%
1990	2,185	−0.58%
1999	2,494	+1.48%
2007	2,762	+1.28%
2012	3,011	+1.74%
2017	3,177	+1.08%
Source: INSEE^[7]

Today

Soultz-sous-Forêts is the site of the European Hot Dry Rocks energy research project.

Notable people

George Abert, member of the Wisconsin State Assembly^[8]

References

^ "Répertoire national des élus: les maires". data.gouv.fr, Plateforme ouverte des données publiques françaises (in French). 2 December 2020.
^ "Populations légales 2021". The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies. 28 December 2023.
^ INSEE commune file
^ ^a ^b Lobban, Michael (2016-03-31), Godfrey, Mark (ed.), "The commissioners for claims on France and the case of the Baron de Bode, 1815–1861", Law and Authority in British Legal History, 1200–1900 (1 ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. 212–249, doi:10.1017/cbo9781316402795.011, ISBN 978-1-316-40279-5, retrieved 2023-08-08
^ Matthew, H. C. G.; Harrison, B., eds. (2004-09-23). "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/71334. Retrieved 2023-08-08. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
^ "THE CASE OF THE BARON DE BODE. (Hansard, 20 June 1854)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 2023-08-08.
^ Population en historique depuis 1968, INSEE
^ "Term: Abert, George 1817 - 1890". Wisconsin Historical Society. Retrieved February 22, 2014.
^ Childe-Pemberton, William Shakespear (1900). The Baroness de Bode, 1775-1803, by William S. Childe-Pemberton... Longmans, Green & Company.