Thonon-les-Bains

Template:Short description Template:Infobox French commune

Thonon-les-Bains (Template:IPA; Template:Langx), often simply referred to as Thonon, is a subprefecture of the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in Eastern France. In 2018, the commune had a population of 35,241. Thonon-les-Bains is part of a transborder metropolitan area known as Grand Genève. It is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva (Template:Langx, or simply Template:Lang).

History

File:Thonon-les-Bains. Château de Ripaille. (3). 2015-06-21.JPG

Château de Ripaille

Thonon-les-Bains was the historic capital of Chablais, a province of the old Duchy of Savoy. The Chablais Savoyard is the portion of Chablais in France. Chablais Valaisan and Chablais Vaudois are those portions of Chablais in the adjacent Switzerland cantons Valais and Vaud.(cite: Chablais Wikipedia) The town was the capital of the Dukedom of Chablais. The Hôtel de Ville was completed around 1831.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

During the debates on the future of the Duchy of Savoy in 1860, the population was sensitive to the idea of a union of the northern part of the duchy with Switzerland. A petition circulated in this part of the country (Chablais, Faucigny, Northern Genevois), but it collected no more than 13,600 signatures. The duchy was reunited after a plebiscite organised on 22 and 23 April 1860 under Napoleon III, in which 99.8 percent of the Savoyards voting were reported to have answered "yes" to the question "Does Savoy want to be reunited to France?"