Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area, and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France. On 1 January 2016, the region will join Lorraine and Champagne-Ardenne to create a new region, tentatively known as Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine (a name will be adopted before 1 July 2016). Alsace is located on France’s eastern border and on the west bank of the upper Rhine adjacent to Germany and Switzerland. The political status of Alsace has been heavily influenced by historical decisions, wars, and strategic politics. The political, economic and cultural capital as well as largest city of Alsace is Strasbourg. The city is the seat of several international organizations and bodies.
The traditional habitat of the Alsatian lowland, like in other regions of Germany and Northern Europe, consists of houses constructed with walls in timber framing and cob and roofing in flat tiles. This type of construction is abundant in adjacent parts of Germany and can be seen in other areas of France, but their particular abundance in Alsace is owed to several reasons:
The proximity to the Vosges where the wood can be found.
During periods of war and bubonic plague, villages were often burned down, so to prevent the collapse of the upper floors, ground floors were built of stone and upper floors built in half-timberings to prevent the spread of fire.
During most of the part of its history, a great part of Alsace was flooded by the Rhine every year. Half-timbered houses were easy to knock down and to move around during those times (a day was necessary to move it and a day to rebuild it in another place).
However, half-timbering was found to increase the risk of fire, which is why from the 19th century, it began to be rendered. In recent times, villagers started to paint the rendering white in accordance with Beaux-Arts movements. To discourage this, the region’s authorities gave financial grants to the inhabitants to paint the rendering in various colors, in order to return to the original style and many inhabitants accepted.
Alsatian cuisine, somewhat based on Germanic culinary traditions, is marked by the use of pork in various forms. It is perhaps mostly known for the region’s wines and beers. Traditional dishes include baeckeoffe, flammekueche, choucroute, and fleischnacka. Southern Alsace, also called the Sundgau, is characterized by carpe frite (fried carp). Alsace is an important wine-producing région. Vins d’Alsace (Alsace wines) are mostly white. Alsace produces some of the world’s most noted dry rieslings and is the only région in France to produce mostly varietal wines identified by the names of the grapes used (wine from Burgundy is also mainly varietal, but not normally identified as such), typically from grapes also used in Germany. The most notable example is Gewürztraminer.
Having been early and always densely populated, Alsace is famous for its high number of picturesque villages, churches and castles and for the various beauties of its three main towns, in spite of severe destructions suffered throughout five centuries of wars between France and Germany. Alsace is furthermore famous for its vineyards (especially along the 170 km of the Route des Vins d’Alsace from Marlenheim to Thann) and the Vosges mountains with their thick and green forests and picturesque lakes.
