Esch-sur-Alzette
| Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R) |
Esch-sur-Alzette is a commune with town status in south-western Luxembourg. It is the country's second "city", and its second-most populous commune, with a population of 35,040 inhabitants, as of 2018.[1]
Variants of name
- Luxembourgish: Esch-Uelzecht pronounced [ˌæʒ‿ˈuə̯ltsəɕt],
- German: Esch-an-der-Alzette [ˌɛʃ ʔan deːɐ̯ ʔalˈzɛt] or Esch-an-der-Alzig,
- French: Esch-sur-Alzette
Location
It lies in the south-west of the country, on the border with France and in the valley of the Alzette, which flows through the town. The town is usually referred to as just Esch; however, the full name distinguishes it from the village and commune of Esch-sur-Sûre which lies 45 kilometres further north. The country's capital, Luxembourg City, is roughly 15 km to the north-east.
Alzette River
The Alzette (Luxembourgish: Uelzecht, German: Alzig) is a river with a length of 73 kilometres in France and Luxembourg. It is a right tributary of the Sauer. It rises in Thil near the town Villerupt in the Meurthe-et-Moselle département, France. It crosses the border with Luxembourg after a few kilometres. At Lameschmillen (near Bergem) it is joined by the Mess. It flows through the Luxembourgish towns Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg City and Mersch, and empties into the Sauer near Ettelbruck. The Sauer is a tributary to the Moselle.
History
For a long time Esch was a small farming village in the valley of the Uelzecht river. This changed when important amounts of iron ore were found in the area in the 1850s. With the development of the mines and the steel industry the town's population multiplied tenfold in a couple of decades. In 1911 the steel and iron producing company ARBED was founded.[2] The development of the steel industry, especially in the south of the country, provided Luxembourg with sustained economic growth during the second half of the 19th century.[3]
Today the industrial wastelands on Belval left behind by the steel industry, are being redeveloped and converted into a new, modern town quarter. New cultural buildings such as the cinema Utopolis Belval[4] and the Rockhal, Luxemburg’s biggest concert hall, schools, flats and Belval Plaza, a shopping centre, have been built in the last years.
Esch-sur-Alzette is home to the National Museum of the Resistance, which has material related to the resistance to German occupation during the Second World War. Lucien Wercollier's sculpture The Political Prisoner is in its entrance hall. Other tourist attractions include the large park, and the Berwart Tower, built in 1621.