This commune is located in the Languedoc-Roussillon region, in the Hérault département, in the canton of Gignac. The village is part of the 4th constituency of Hérault.
Climate
In 2020, Météo-France published a typology of climates in mainland France in which the commune is exposed to a Mediterranean climate and is in the Provence, Languedoc-Roussillon climatic region, characterised by low rainfall in summer, very good sunshine (2,600 h/year), a hot summer 21.5 °C (71 °F), very dry air in summer, dry in all seasons, strong winds (frequency of 40 to 50% of winds > 5 m/s) and little fog.[3]
For the period 1971-2000, the average annual temperature was 14.3 °C (58 °F) with an annual temperature range of 16.5 °C (62 °F). The average annual total rainfall is 849 mm, with 6.8 days of precipitation in January and 3.1 days in July. For the period 1991-2020, the average annual temperature observed at the nearest weather station, located in the commune of Saint-André-de-Sangonis, 3 km away as the crow flies,[4] is 15.5 °C (60 °F) and the average annual total rainfall is 652.4 mm.[5][6]
For the future, climate parameters for the municipality estimated for 2050 according to different greenhouse gas emission scenarios can be consulted on a dedicated website published by Météo-France in November 2022.[Map 1]
Urbanism
Land use
The commune's land use, as revealed by the Europeanbiophysical land cover databaseCorine Land Cover (CLC), is characterised by the importance of agricultural land (96.9% in 2018), an increase compared to 1990 (77%). The detailed breakdown in 2018 is as follows: permanent crops (56.5%), heterogeneous agricultural areas (40.4%), forests (3%).[7] Changes in land use in the municipality and its infrastructure can be seen on various maps of the area: the Cassini map (eighteenth century), the carte d'état-major (1820-1866) and IGN maps or aerial photos for the current period (1950 to the present).
Population
Changes in the number of inhabitants are known from population censuses carried out in the commune since 1793. For communes with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, a census of the entire population is carried out every five years, with the legal populations for the intervening years estimated by interpolation or extrapolation.[8]
For the commune, the first exhaustive census under the new system was carried out in 2005.[9]
In 2021, the commune had a population of 110,[a] unchanged from 2015 (Hérault: +7.29%, France excluding Mayotte: +1.84%).
Historical population
Year
Pop.
±% p.a.
1793
60
—
1800
72
+2.64%
1806
67
−1.19%
1821
120
+3.96%
1831
63
−6.24%
1836
68
+1.54%
1841
78
+2.78%
1846
70
−2.14%
1851
71
+0.28%
1856
78
+1.90%
1861
70
−2.14%
1866
87
+4.44%
1872
66
−4.50%
1876
73
+2.55%
1881
71
−0.55%
1886
59
−3.64%
1891
60
+0.34%
1896
70
+3.13%
1901
71
+0.28%
1906
65
−1.75%
Year
Pop.
±% p.a.
1911
64
−0.31%
1921
74
+1.46%
1926
73
−0.27%
1931
78
+1.33%
1936
65
−3.58%
1946
41
−4.50%
1954
62
+5.31%
1962
61
−0.20%
1968
46
−4.59%
1975
43
−0.96%
1982
56
+3.85%
1990
71
+3.01%
1999
111
+5.09%
2005
113
+0.30%
2006
121
+7.08%
2010
114
−1.48%
2015
110
−0.71%
2020
111
+0.18%
2021
110
−0.90%
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.
The church, Notre-Dame de la Garrigue, was built by Élodie Martin, the widow of the textile magnate Jean-Pierre Balsan as a homage to her husband. The Balsan family is known to have inhabited Lagamas since at least 1576. The church, with its unusual gothic style, is a miniature inspired by the Châteauroux cathedral, a city where the Balsan family had acquired the Manufacture Royale de Drap de Châteauroux in 1856.
The church was completed in around 1874.[12] An extensive renovation was finalised in 2007.
The same widow built the large mansion facing the church, known locally as the château. It hosts an annual multi-disciplinary artist residency organised by the Cornelius Arts Foundation.
^Legal municipal population in effect as of January 1, 2024, dated 2021, defined within the territorial boundaries in effect as of January 1, 2023, statistical reference date: January 1, 2021.