IL ETAIT UNE FOIS LE VILLAGE DE LE POËT

Le Poët is a French commune located in the Hautes-Alpes department, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Location. Crossed by the old Route Napoléon, the village is located 38 kilometers south of the city of Gap, 13 kilometers from the city of Sisteron, and 5 kilometers from the town of Laragne-Montéglin. Lake Mison is 1.9 kilometers away, and the town of Laragne-Montéglin is 2.2 kilometers away. Six communes border Le Poët: Upaix, Sigoyer (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), Mison (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), Le Poët, Vaumeilh (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), Sisteron (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), and Valernes (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence). Transportation. The municipality is crossed by departmental roads D722 and D1085. The A51 motorway passes near the municipality; its nearest access point is in Sisteron, in the direction of Gap or Marseille. Climate. In 2010, the municipality's climate was classified as a modified Mediterranean climate, according to a study by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), based on data covering the period 1971-2000. In 2020, Météo-France published a typology of the climates of metropolitan France, in which the municipality is exposed to a mountain or mountain-margin climate and is located in the Southern Alps climate region, characterized by annual rainfall of 850 to 1000 mm, with the lowest rainfall in summer. For the period 1971-2000, the average annual temperature was 11.1°C, with an annual temperature range of 18.2°C. The average annual rainfall is 849 mm, with 6.8 days of precipitation in January and 4.5 days in July. For the period 1991-2020, the average annual temperature observed at the nearest Météo-France weather station, "Laragne Montéglin," located in the municipality of Laragne-Montéglin, 6 km away as the crow flies, is 12.0°C, and the average annual rainfall is 813.8 mm. The maximum temperature recorded at this station is 41.1°C, reached on June 28, 2019; the minimum temperature is -17.4°C, reached on December 18, 2010. The municipality's climate parameters were estimated for the middle of the century (2041-2070), based on various greenhouse gas emission scenarios using the new DRIAS-2020 reference climate projections. They can be viewed on a dedicated website published by Météo-France in November 2022. Typology. Le Poët is a rural municipality. It is indeed one of the municipalities with low or very low population density, according to the INSEE (French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies) municipal population density grid. Furthermore, the municipality is part of the Sisteron catchment area, of which it is a peripheral municipality. This area, which includes 21 municipalities, is categorized as having fewer than 50,000 inhabitants. The land use of the municipality, as shown in the European biophysical land cover database, Corine Land Cover (CLC), is characterized by the significant presence of agricultural land (76.8% in 2018), although this is a decrease compared to 1990 (79.3%). The detailed land distribution in 2018 was as follows: permanent crops (43.7%), forests (18.5%), arable land (18.1%), heterogeneous agricultural areas (15%), urbanized areas (2.4%), open spaces with little or no vegetation (2.2%). The evolution of land use in the municipality and its infrastructure can be observed on various maps of the territory: the Cassini map (18th century), the General Staff map (1820-1866), and the IGN maps or aerial photographs for the current period (1950 to the present). Toponymy. The name of the locality is recorded as Castrum de Poyéto in 1280, and in the Latin form Pogétum in 1290. The name Poyeto, recorded in 1280, is composed of *puy*, from the Latin *podium*, meaning a hill, and the diminutive suffix *-ittum*, thus: Lo Poèt in Occitan. History. In the 18th century, a ferry was built to cross the Durance River to supply water to the watermill. Le Poët was part of: from 1995 to 2017, the Laragnais inter-municipal authority; from January 1, 2017, the Sisteronais Buëch inter-municipal authority. Demographics. The population trend is known through censuses conducted in the municipality since 1793. For municipalities with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, a census covering the entire population is carried out every five years, with the official population figures for the intervening years estimated by interpolation or extrapolation. For this municipality, the first comprehensive census under the new system was conducted in 2004. In 2021, the municipality had 785 inhabitants, an increase of 1.82% compared to 2015. For reference: Hautes-Alpes: +0.04%, France excluding Mayotte: +1.84%. (Sources: Ldh, EHESS, Cassini, until 1999, then INSEE, from 2006 onwards.)