Lourdes

Lourdes () is a town and commune in the southwest of the Hautes-Pyrénées department. It is in the first Pyrenean foothills in the Occitanie region, in southwestern France.

Lourdes was originally a small unremarkable market town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees. At that time the most prominent feature was the fortified castle which rises up from the centre of the town on a rock. Following the claims that there were apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858, Lourdes has developed into a major place of Christian pilgrimage.

Today Lourdes has a population of around 15,000 inhabitants but is able to take in some 5,000,000 pilgrims and tourists every season. Lourdes has the second greatest number of hotels in France after Paris with about 270 establishments.

It is the joint seat of the diocese of Tarbes-et-Lourdes.

Geography
Lourdes is overlooked from the south by the Pyrenean peaks of Aneto, Montaigu, and Vignemale (3,298m), while around the town there are three summits reaching up to 1,000 m, which are known as the Béout, the Petit Jer and the Grand Jer.

It has an area of  and its average altitude is ; at the city hall, the altitude is .

+ Lourdes and its neighboring communes 350px|Map of the commune de Lourdes

Population
The inhabitants of Lourdes are known, in French, as Lourdais (women: Lourdaises).

Lourdes has a population, in 2014, of 14,361, and its population density is of  inhabitants/km2.

 Images 

Related pages
 Arrondissement of Argelès-Gazost
 Communes of the Hautes-Pyrénées department

References

Other websites

 La Ville de Lourdes website 
 Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes 
 Lourdes tourism website