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Martigny

municipality in the canton of Valais in Switzerland

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ68956
Source-derived summary

Martigny (French pronunciation: [maʁtiɲi]; German: Martinach, pronounced [ˈmaʁtiːnaːx]; Latin: Octodurum) is a municipality and the capital town of the district of Martigny, canton of Valais, Switzerland. It lies at an elevation of 471 meters (1,545 ft), and its population is approximately 20,000 inhabitants (Martignerains or "Octoduriens"). It is a junction of roads joining Italy, France and Switzerland. One road links it over the Great St. Bernard Pass to Aosta (Italy), and the other over the col de la Forclaz to Chamonix (France). In winter, Martigny is known for its numerous nearby Alp ski resorts such as Verbier.

Geography

Martigny lies at an elevation of 471 meters (1,545 ft), about 33 kilometers (21 mi) south-southeast of Montreux. It is on the left foothills of the steep hillsides of the Rhone Valley, at the foot of the Swiss Alps, and is located at the point where the southwestern-flowing Rhone turns ninety degrees northward and heads toward Lake Geneva. The river La Drance flows from the southern Valais Alps (Wallis) through Martigny and joins the Rhone from the left just after Rhone's distinctive, almost rectangular change in direction.

Martigny has an area, (as of the 2004/09 survey), of 32.6 km2 (12.59 sq mi).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Martigny” is municipality in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Martigny, municipality and canton, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2004—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Martigny, municipality and canton is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “municipality in the canton of Valais in Switzerland” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q68956. VIAF identifies the subject as 156144648643034289128. Authority coordinates are 46.100, 7.073. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Martigny”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Martigny primary sources, Martigny archive and Martigny research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Martigny”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Martigny” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.