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The Aosta Valley (in Italian: Valle d'Aosta, French: Vallée d'Aoste, Arpitan: Val d'Outa) is a mountainous region in north-western Italy. It is bordered by France to the west, Switzerland to the north and the region of Piedmont to the south. The region has a special autonomous status and forms one of the Provinces of Italy. The regional capital is Aosta/Aoste.

The Aosta Valley is the smallest region in Italy and has the lowest population density, and is divided into 74 comunes (Italian: comuni), see Comunes of the Aosta Valley.

The region covers 3,263 km² and has a population of about 120,000, some of it Francophone, concentrated in the valley bottomlands. Italian and French are used for the regional government's acts and laws, though the language actually spoken by the largest part of the population is Arpitan (Franco-Provençal). This language was once widely spoken in Savoy, Bresse, Lyon area, and the Jura regions of France, and the Suisse-Romande region of Switzerland. Today, the Valle d'Aosta region has the most speakers of any Franco-Provençal language. The regional dialect is called Valdôtain (Valdoten) or patois. The residents of the small town of Gressoney speak a dialect of German.

The Aosta Valley is an Alpine valley that with its side valleys includes the Italian slopes of Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn; its highest peak is the Mont Blanc.

It is a major centre for winter sports, most famously at Courmayeur. The Dora Baltea has its origins in the Valle d'Aosta, flowing south to join the Po.

The upper Aosta Valley is the traditional southern starting-point for the tracks, then roads, which divided here to lead over the Alpine passes. The road through the Great St. Bernard Pass (or today the Great St. Bernard Tunnel) leads to Martigny, Valais, and the one through the Little St. Bernard Pass to Bourg-Saint-Maurice, Savoie. Today Aosta is joined to Chamonix in France by the Mont Blanc Tunnel, a road tunnel on E25 running underneath the Alps.

The area was of strategic importance, under the control of many different rulers after the collapse of Roman rule in the 5th century, until it passed to the house of Savoy in the 11th century. Valle d'Aosta was established as an autonomous region of Italy in 1948.


[edit] History

The Val d'Aosta, by John Brett, 1858The first inhabitants of the Aosta Valley were Celts and Ligurians, whose language lingers in some local placenames. Rome conquered the region from the local Salassi ca. 25 BC and founded Augusta Praetoria (Aosta) to secure the strategic mountain passes, which they improved with bridges and roads. After Rome the high valley preserved traditions of autonomy, reinforced by its seasonal isolation, though it was loosely held in turns by the Goths and the Lombards, then by the Burgundian kings in the 5th century, followed by the Franks, who overran the Burgundian kingdom in 534. At the division among the heirs of Charlemagne in 870, the Aosta Valley formed part of the Lotharingian Kingdom of Italy, in a second partition a decade later, it formed part of the Kingdom of Upper Burgundy, which was joined to the Kingdom of Arles — all doubtless without many significant corresponding changes in the personnel of the virtually independent fiefs in the Valle d'Aosta. In 1031/2 Umberto Biancamano, the founder of the house of Savoy, received the title count of Aosta from the Emperor Conrad II of the Franconian line and built himself a commanding fortification at Bard. Saint Anselm of Canterbury was born in Aosta in 1033/4. The region was divided among strongly fortified castles, and in 1191 Tomaso di Savoia found it necessary to grant to the communes a Carta delle Franchigie ("Charter of Liberties") that preserved autonomy, rights that were fiercely defended until 1770, when they were revoked in order to tie Aosta more closely to the Piedmont, but which kept re-surfacing during post-Napoleonic times. Under Mussolini, a forced programme of "Italianization", including population transfers of Valdostans into Piedmont and Italian-speaking workers into Aosta, fostered movements towards separatism; Aosta was regranted its autonomy in 1948 [1]. - - In the mid-13th century Emperor Frederick II made the County of Aosta a duchy (see Duke of Aosta), and its arms charged with a lion rampant were carried in the Savoia arms until the reunification of Italy, 1870 [2]. The region remained part of Savoy lands, with the exception of a French occupation from 1539 to 1563. - - During the Middle Ages the region remained strongly feudal, and castles, such as those of the Challant family in the Valley of Gressoney, still dot the landscape. In the 12th and 13th centuries, German-speaking Walser communities were established in the Gressoney, and some communes retain their separate Walser identity even today. - - The Aosta Valley remained agricultural and pastoral until the construction of dams to harness the potential of its hydroelectric power brought metal-working industry to the region