Roquemaure, Gard

Roquemaure (ʁɔkmoʁ; Ròcamaura; Provençal: Recamaulo) is a small town and commune in the Gard department of southern France. The town lies north of Avignon on the right bank of the Rhône. In 2017 the commune had a population of 5,481. Roquemaure was the site of a royal castle during the medieval period but after the French Revolution the castle was dismantled and now only two towers remain. In the 18th century Roquemaure was the centre of attempts to regulate the production of wine in the area and the term "Côte du Rhône" was coined. The town is infamous as the site where phylloxera, a pest of grapevines, was introduced into France from North America via England in the 1860s. Viticulture is still an important activity in the commune. Several types of wine are produced including some classified as Côtes du Rhône Appellation d'origine contrôlée. Roquemaure lies on the right (west) bank of the Rhône, at the eastern end of a narrow limestone ridge, the Montagne de Saint Geniès, that rises abruptly from the flat alluvial plain and extends for in an east-west direction. The town is north of Avignon, south-southeast of Orange and west of Châteauneuf-du-Pape which lies on the other side of the Rhône. The town is the administrative centre (chef-lieu) of the canton of Roquemaure, one of 23 cantons of the Gard department. The canton consists of eleven communes: Codolet, Laudun-l'Ardoise, Lirac, Montfaucon, Roquemaure, Saint-Geniès-de-Comolas, Saint-Laurent-des-Arbres, Saint-Paul-les-Fonts, Saint-Victor-la-Coste, Sauveterre and Tavel. The name Roquemaure is believed to be derived from the Occitan ròca (rock) + maura (feminine adjective black). Early Latin manuscripts use a variety of spellings for the name of the town. In 1539 the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts specified that French was to be used in official documents. The current French spelling is used in a manuscript dating from 1550. In 218 BC, at the start of the Second Punic War, Hannibal crossed the Rhône with his army and war elephants in his journey from the Iberian peninsula to northern Italy.