Le Grau-du-Roi

Le Grau-du-Roi
A general view of Le Grau-du-Roi
Coat of arms
Le Grau-du-Roi
Location within Occitanie region  Le Grau-du-Roi
Coordinates: 43°32′17″N 4°08′14″E / 43.5381°N 4.1372°E / 43.5381; 4.1372Coordinates: 43°32′17″N 4°08′14″E / 43.5381°N 4.1372°E / 43.5381; 4.1372
Country	France
Region	Occitanie
Department	Gard
Arrondissement	Nîmes
Canton	Aigues-Mortes
Intercommunality	Terre de Camargue
Government
• Mayor (2014–2020)	Robert Crauste
Area1	54.73 km2 (21.13 sq mi)
Population (2005)2	8,110
• Density	150/km2 (380/sq mi)
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
INSEE/Postal code	30133 / 30240
Elevation	0–5 m (0–16 ft) (avg. 1 m or 3.3 ft)
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. 2Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

Le Grau-du-Roi is a commune in the Gard department in southern France. It is the only commune in Gard to have a frontage on the Mediterranean. To the west is the Herault department and La Grande-Motte village, and to the east is the Bouches-du-Rhone department. Using the sea as a vantage point, the commune has four distinct sections: the right beach (Plage de Rive Droite), the Village, the left beach (Plage de Rive Gauche), Port Camargue and L'Espiguette. Immediately landwards are the large shallow étangs, saline marshes, which separate it from Aigues Mortes, a neighboring mediaeval walled city that used to be a port. The étangs are home to numerous flamingoes.

Le Grau-du-Roi comes from the occitan word grau (Latin gradus), which refers to the opening of an étang (shallow saline lake), or the watercourse from an etang into the sea. It is roughly equivalent to the usage of the English term bayou. Roi is the French word for King. Aigues-Mortes means literally 'dead water', aigues coming from the Latin aqua.

Le Grau-du-Roi is south of Aigues-Mortes, in the Gard department. It is in the canton d'Aigues-Mortes, which was originally in the Herault department, but it was exchanged for the canton de Ganges. It is separated from Aigues-Mortes by a series of saline marshes, called étangs in French, and a bend in the river Vidourle. The étangs are named as follows: l'étang du Ponant, l'étang du Médard, l'étang du Repausset Levant, and the lac de Salonique, which is a lake rather than a marsh, as its name suggests. To the west of the town, the coastal strip is breached where the Vidourle empties into the Mediterranean, and to the east is that of the Petit Rhone. The course of these two rivers has been subject to change and reversal. The Rhone used to flow into the étangs further to the west and at one point, the Vidourle flowed into it rather than the sea, The route in the 12th Century was through the Grau Louis and the Old Channel. In 1570, a new breach occurred at a point called Gagne-Petit. It is around this grau that the settlement was formed. The area between the étangs and the sea was settled by Italian immigrants at the end of the 19th century. From then until the 1920s, the economy was based entirely on fishing, but tourism later became important, culminating in the construction of Port-Camargue.