Coordinates: 49°42′26″N 0°12′27″E / 49.707223, 0.2075

Commune of Étretat
Location
Étretat (France)
Étretat
Étretat
Administration
Country France
Region Haute-Normandie
Department Seine-Maritime     
Arrondissement Le Havre
Canton Criquetot-l'Esneval
Intercommunality Communauté de Communes du Canton de Criquetot-l'Esneval
Mayor Franck Cottard
(2008-2014)
Statistics
Elevation 0–102 m (0–330 ft)
(avg. 8 m/26 ft)
Land area1 4.07 km2 (1.57 sq mi)
Population2
(2005)		 1640
 - Density 402 /km² (1,040 /sq mi)
Miscellaneous
INSEE/Postal code 76254/ 76790
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
2 Population sans doubles comptes: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.
France

Étretat is a commune in the Seine-Maritime département of France.

Contents

Geography

A tourist and farming town situated some 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Le Havre, at the junction of the D940, D11 and D139 roads. located on the coast of the Pays de Caux area.

Population

Population Growth
1962 1968 1975 1982 1990 1999 2005
1379 1472 1525 1577 1565 1615 1640
Census count starting from 1962 : Population without double counting

The famous cliffs

Panorama of the cliffs

Étretat is best known for its cliffs, including a famous natural arch. These cliffs and the associated resort beach attracted artists including Eugène Boudin, Gustave Courbet and Claude Monet, and were featured prominently in the 1909 Arsène Lupin novel The Hollow Needle by Maurice Leblanc.

Two of the three famous arches seen from the town are the Porte d'Aval, and the Porte d'Amont. The Manneporte is the third which cannot be seen from the town.

The GR 21 long-distance hiking path (Le Havre to Le Tréport) passes through the town.

Noted residents

Étretat was the birthplace of Élie Halévy (1870–1937), philosopher and historian.

Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) spent most of his childhood in Étretat, at "Les Verguies". In 1882 he wrote a short story for Le Gaulois entitled "The Englishman of Étretat" (L'Anglais d'Étretat), based on encounters in 1868, as a house guest of G. E. J. Powell, with the English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, whom he had helped save from drowning. The dried human hand displayed on one of the tables was later acquired by Maupassant to adorn his Paris apartment; it inspired another short story, "The Flayed Hand" (La Main Écorchée). [1] In 1883 he built his own house in Étretat, "La Guillette", in the mediterranean style in "Le Grand Val", since renamed rue Guy-de-Maupassant. [2]

The White Bird

Monument atop the cliffs of Étretat, honoring The White Bird's attempt and disappearance
Main article: The White Bird

Étretat is known for being the last place in France from which the 1927 biplane The White Bird (L'Oiseau Blanc) was seen. French WWI war heroes Charles Nungesser and François Coli had been attempting to make the first non-stop flight from Paris to New York, but after the plane's May 8, 1927 departure, it disappeared somewhere over the Atlantic. It is considered one of the great unexplained mysteries of aviation. A monument to the flight was established in Étretat, but then destroyed during World War II, during the German occupation. A new and taller monument was constructed in 1963, along with a nearby museum.[3]

Galleries

Paintings of Étretat

Johan Jongkind, The Arbour of Étretat, 1852

Courbet, The Cliff at Étretat after the Storm, 1869–70

Claude Monet, The Cliffs at Étretat, 1885

Claude Monet, Étretat, gate of Aval: fishing boats leaving the harbour, 1885

Henry Bacon, Étretat 1890

Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, Étretat

Claude-Samuel Lévine, The needle of Étretat, 1983

Marie-Claire Lefébure, The boats on the beach, 1999
Pictures of the cliffs and the seashore

Étretat beach

Cliff and natural arch in Étretat

The main Aval cliff, its arch and the needle

Beach, as seen from the Amont side, in the evening

Amont Door from the beach

The Needle of Arsène Lupin

Chambre des Demoiselles

Panorama of cliffs at Étretat

See also

Sister project Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Étretat

Notes

  1. ^ Goddard, N. G. (1952), "Maupassant and the English", French Studies VI: 35-40 
  2. ^ History of La Guillette
  3. ^ Schofield, Brian (2002-09-22). "Hop over: five-day drives just across the Channel - France", Sunday Times. 

External links

 This Seine-Maritime geographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89tretat"


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