Sournia

Commune in Occitania, France

Sournia Sornià Sornhan
Commune
A general view of Sournia
Coat of arms
Location of Sournia
(2020–2026)		Yvon Crambes^[1]
Area ¹	29.99 km² (11.58 sq mi)
Population (2021)^[2]	486
• Density	16/km² (42/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
INSEE/Postal code	66198 /66730
Elevation	380–1,234 m (1,247–4,049 ft) (avg. 500 m or 1,600 ft)
¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

Sournia (French pronunciation: [suʁnja] ^ⓘ; Catalan: Sornià; Occitan: Sornhan) is a commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in the Occitanie region of south-western France. Its inhabitants are known as Sourniannais.

Geography

Sournia is a town of the Fenouillèdes, the languedocienne part of the Pyrénées-Orientales, in the canton of La Vallée de l'Agly and in the arrondissement of Prades. The river Désix runs through the village. Sournia is 22 km from Ille-sur-Têt and from Vinça, 24 km from Prades and from Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet, 30 km from Latour-de-France and 34 km from Axat.
The commune is covered by the quality wine standard AOC 'Côtes-du-Roussillon'.
Sournia is crossed by the long-distance footpath, GR 36.

Administration

The current mayor of Sournia is Paul Blanc, a senator, of the centre-right and right wing party UMP founded by Jacques Chirac.

Population

The population of Sournia in 2017 was 498 people. For some reason at the end of the 19th century, the population of Sournia seemed to have a reputation for having one of the longest longevity in France, even though this fact was not clearly verified.^[3]

Historical population

Year	Pop.	±% p.a.
1793	761	—
1800	814	+0.97%
1806	812	−0.04%
1821	882	+0.55%
1831	929	+0.52%
1836	957	+0.60%
1841	933	−0.51%
1846	945	+0.26%
1851	1,073	+2.57%
1856	1,006	−1.28%
1861	950	−1.14%
1866	921	−0.62%
1872	885	−0.66%
1876	850	−1.00%
1881	765	−2.09%
1886	725	−1.07%
1891	686	−1.10%
1896	634	−1.56%

Year	Pop.	±% p.a.
1901	604	−0.96%
1906	604	+0.00%
1911	583	−0.71%
1921	463	−2.28%
1926	410	−2.40%
1931	424	+0.67%
1936	389	−1.71%
1946	382	−0.18%
1954	347	−1.19%
1962	351	+0.14%
1968	339	−0.58%
1975	296	−1.92%
1982	339	+1.96%
1990	376	+1.30%
1999	367	−0.27%
2007	419	+1.67%
2012	494	+3.35%
2017	498	+0.16%

Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.

Source: EHESS^[4] and INSEE (1968–2017)^[5]

Places of interest

Ruins of the former church of Saint-Michel from the tenth century.
The ancient church of Sainte-Félicité from the tenth and eleventh centuries.
Church of Arsa from the twelfth century.

References

^ "Répertoire national des élus: les maires" (in French). data.gouv.fr, Plateforme ouverte des données publiques françaises. 13 September 2022.
^ "Populations légales 2021". The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies. 28 December 2023.
^ (in French) Fabricio Cardenas, Vieux papiers des Pyrénées-Orientales, Record de longévité à Sournia en 1897 , 3 January 2015
^ Des villages de Cassini aux communes d'aujourd'hui: Commune data sheet Sournia, EHESS (in French).
^ Population en historique depuis 1968, INSEE