Lalinde

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Lalinde is a small town in southwestern France, in the Dordogne department of the Nouvelle‑Aquitaine region. It sits on the Dordogne River and used to be surrounded by fortified walls, though only a few remains are visible today. The town has train stations at Lalinde and nearby Couze, with connections to Bordeaux, Bergerac and Sarlat-la-Canéda.

Historically, Lalinde was an important early English bastide town and faced sieges during the Hundred Years’ War, as well as in 1562 and 1572 during the Wars of Religion. A railway station opened in 1877 and a bridge over the Dordogne was completed in 1880, though there were earlier river crossings dating back to Roman times.

In 1944, during World War II, the local Resistance suffered heavy losses in the Mouleydier massacre on 21 June. On 11 July 1964, during the Tour de France, a terrible accident happened at a narrow bridge by the Lalinde canal at Port-de-Couze, where a tanker hitting spectators caused nine deaths and many injuries; a stone marker remembers the tragedy.

As of 2023, Lalinde has about 2,931 residents. The town covers roughly 128 square kilometers and sits at elevations between about 25 and 194 meters. The current mayor (2021–2026) is Esther Fargues.