Balbigny

Balbigny
Balbigny
Commune
	Town hall
	Location of Balbigny
	Balbigny Balbigny
	Coordinates: 45°49′09″N 4°11′17″E / 45.8192°N 4.1881°E
Country	France
Region	Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Department	Loire
Arrondissement	Roanne
Canton	Le Coteau
Intercommunality	Balbigny
Government
• Mayor (2014–2020)	Gilles Dupin
Area 1	16.98 km2 (6.56 sq mi)
Population (2021)	2,848
• Density	170/km2 (430/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
INSEE/Postal code	42011 /42510
Elevation	314–482 m (1,030–1,581 ft)
	1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km2 (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

Balbigny is a commune in the Loire department in central France.

History

Balbigny owes its name to a Roman general named Balbinius who based himself here in order to conduct a war. Nothing survives from this period. The earliest identified traces of Balbigny date from 1090.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, before the Loire was channelled, Balbigny was a village of boatmen, known for flat bottomed boats known as Rambertes which were used to transport the coal mined at Saint-Étienne. The loaded Rambertes arrived from Saint-Rambert and stopped off at Balbigny where the boat crews were changed, taking the boats to the next change-over point at Roanne. All this changed in August 1832 with the arrival of the third oldest railway line in France which connected Andrézieux-Bouthéon with Roanne, passing Balbigny en route. An extension of the rail network in 1913 saw Balbigny connected with Saint-Germain-Laval and Régny. The coal was therefore transported by rail, but the railway also gave farmers in the district access to a wider range of markets for their produce.

The road bridge crossing the Loire was destroyed in 1940 in order to hold back advancing German troops, and a ferry service was introduced to permit the river to be crossed. The bridge was rebuilt in 1950.