Roanne
commune in Loire, France
Roanne (French pronunciation: [ʁɔan] ; Arpitan: Rouana; Occitan: Roana) is a commune in the Loire department, central France.
It is located 90 km (56 mi) northwest of Lyon on the river Loire. It has an important Museum, the Musée des Beaux-arts et d'Archéologie Joseph-Déchelette (French), with many Egyptian artifacts.
Economy
Roanne is known for gastronomy (largely because of the famous Troisgros family), textiles, agriculture and manufacturing tanks.
Roanne station has rail connections to Clermont-Ferrand, Saint-Étienne, Moulins and Lyon.
The Roanne region produces, particularly, fresh red wines designated as of the Côte Roannaise.
History
The toponymy is Gaulish, Rod-Onna ("flowing water") which became Rodumna, then Rouhanne and Roanne. The town was sited at a strategic point, the head of navigation on the Loire, below its narrow gorges. As a trans-shipping point, its importance declined with the collapse of long-distance trade after the fourth century. In the twelfth century, the site passed to the comte du Forez, under whose care it began to recover.
The public source identifies “Roanne” as commune in Loire, France. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Roanne, commune and Loire.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3581. VIAF identifies the subject as 235072316. The Library of Congress control number is n85109459. Authority coordinates are 46.036, 4.068. 3 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Roanne” 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.