Ballens is a municipality in the district of Morges in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.
A tumulus from the Hallstatt time period was found near Ballens.
The first record of Ballens is from 1139 under the name Barlens. In 1453 the spelling Balens appeared. In the Middle Ages Ballens was the center of a small dominion which was under the control of the Romainmôtier monastery and the lords of Aubonne. After the capture of Vaud by Bern in 1536 Ballens shared in the fate of Aubonne and in 1701 it became part of the district of Aubonne. After the collapse of the Ancien régime the village belonged to the canton of Léman from 1798 to 1803 during the Helvetic Republic. It finally became a part of the canton of Vaud as a part of a treaty. In 1798 Ballens was assigned to the district of Morges, and in 1803 it became part of the district of Aubonne.
Ballens is located at above mean sea level (AMSL), northwest of the city of Morges (as the crow flies). It is a scattered village, spread out over a knoll on a plateau at the foot of the Jura Mountains.
Ballens has an area, , of . Of this area, or 63.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 29.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 5.7% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.4% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.7% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 1.3% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.7%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 60.8% is used for growing crops and 2.7% is pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
It contains a section of the western edge of the Swiss Plateau. The municipality stretches from the foot of the Jura Mountains eastward over the valley lowlands of the Veyron River and the rise that Ballens sits on and then to the dry river valley of Grand Marais in the east. This wide, flat valley serves as a channel for melt water from the Rhône Glacier, a remnant from the Ice Age.
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Le district de Morges, dont Morges est le chef-lieu, est l'un des dix districts du canton de Vaud. Originellement composé de 34 communes divisés en 4 cercles, le district s'est vu amputé des communes de Bussigny, Chavannes-près-Renens, Écublens, Saint-Sulpice et Villars-Sainte-Croix qui ont rejoint le nouveau district de l'Ouest lausannois lors de la réorganisation cantonale du .
Apples est une ancienne commune suisse et une localité de la commune de Hautemorges, située dans le district de Morges, dans le canton de Vaud. La partition d'argent et de gueules veut rappeler l'appartenance d'Apples à l'abbaye de Romainmôtier, cependant que la bande d'or chargée de trois tourteaux de gueules rappelle la famille Dapples ou d'Apples qui, au , émigra à Lausanne. Les habitants de la commune sont surnommés les Caque-Pois (lè Caca-Pâi en patois vaudois), cultivés en quantité dans la région, les Caque-à-Part (lè Caquapart), en raison de la morgue des habitants, et les Retrousse-Jupons (lè Trousse-Cotillon).