Vichy
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² and river estuaries. 2
Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes only counted once.
Vichy is a city in the Allier department in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais. It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944. The town's inhabitants are called
Vichyssois. Up until the 18th century they were more properly known as
les Vichois which stems from the Occitan name of the town,
Vichèi. The writer Valery Larbaud uses the term
Vicaldiens after the Ancient Roman name for the community. With 80,194 inhabitants, Vichy's urban area is the second largest in the Auvergne region behind Clermont-Ferrand.