Remarkable land · Saint-Véran, Hautes-Alpes
In Saint-Véran, in the Queyras, a village of larch and stone stretched along a south-facing slope at 2,042 metres
A commune of 160 people in the Queyras regional nature park, with its school, town hall and church above 2,000 m.
History
Saint-Véran claims the title of highest commune in Europe. The village association, Les Amis de Saint-Véran, is precise about it: Europe has higher villages and hamlets, but no commune that keeps a school, a town hall and a church at this altitude. The figure of 2,042 m is measured at the steps of the present town hall. The church threshold stands at 2,040 m and the tip of its bell tower at 2,070 m.
The village stretches for more than a kilometre across the slope, facing south. It was once called "Travers". In 1526 a fire destroyed it. The inhabitants rebuilt it in quarters, called ruas, separated by strips of land where building was forbidden, to stop fire from spreading. Each quarter had its bread oven and its fountain. The rule held until 1875; the gaps have since been filled in, but the five quarters are still there.
The traditional house combined the dwelling, the cowshed and the barn. The fuste, built of larch trunks on a stone base, lets the air through to dry hay and rye on its balconies. In winter people slept on the ground floor, in box beds next to the animals. The caset, a stone wing roofed with schist slabs, held the kitchen. From 1870 houses were rebuilt on the same plan, in stone rather than logs.
The village bought a fire pump in 1874; it was used for the last time in 1967. The Soum house, dated 1641, is now a museum run by the Queyras regional nature park. The commune had 839 inhabitants in 1851. After the floods of 1957 swept away the mill channels, 223 remained in 1962. INSEE, the French statistics office, now counts 160, over 44.75 km².
At the reference point for the village centre, the cadastre shows plot AB 418, of 428 m², at 1 place de l’Église, the town hall’s address. The local development plan zones it Ua, the zone for old centres and historic quarters. It lies within Saint-Véran’s protected heritage area and within the protected surroundings of the church, a listed historic monument, like a farmhouse with a sundial in the village.
Our view
On the aerial view, the roofs form a narrow band that follows the contour line. The houses turn their long side to the valley. Below them, meadows and then a larch forest run down towards the stream.
In the streets, you pass from one quarter to the next through small squares with a larch-wood fountain and an oven. The dates carved on the lintels are often those of a renovation rather than of the building itself.
Updated 28 October 2026
More remarkable land
Sources
- Les Amis de Saint-Véran, « Le Village » (altitude, quartiers, église, musée du Soum)
- Les Amis de Saint-Véran, « Histoire » (incendie de 1526, reconstruction en pierre, population 1851 et 1962)
- Les Amis de Saint-Véran, « Patrimoine et architecture » (fuste, caset, pompe à incendie, moulins)
- Mairie de Saint-Véran (altitude, superficie, adresse de la mairie)
- Les Plus Beaux Villages de France, Saint-Véran
- Insee, population légale de la commune (via geo.api.gouv.fr)
- Cadastre (IGN, API Carto), parcelle AB 418 de Saint-Véran
- Géoportail de l'Urbanisme, PLU et servitudes de Saint-Véran
- Géorisques (API GASPAR), risques recensés sur la commune de Saint-Véran
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Aerial photographs: IGN, BD ORTHO, Licence Ouverte. Plot outlines: French cadastral plan (DGFiP, IGN). Our editorial pact