Randan, Puy-de-Dôme

Commune in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France

Coat of arms

Location of Randan

(2020–2026) Sandrine Couturat^[1]Area

15.65 km² (6.04 sq mi)Population

(2021)^[2]

1,620 • Density100/km² (270/sq mi)Time zoneUTC+01:00 (CET) • Summer (DST)UTC+02:00 (CEST)INSEE/Postal code

63295 /63310

Elevation298–404 m (978–1,325 ft)
(avg. 410 m or 1,350 ft)¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

Randan (French pronunciation: [ʁɑ̃dɑ̃]; Occitan: Randans) is a commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in central France.

The place gives its name to Randanite, a soluble silica that occurs as fine earth near Randan and near Algiers.^[3] In the late 19th century the official composition of the dynamite at the Poudrerie nationale de Vonges and other French powder works was 75% nitroglycerin, 20.8% randanite, 3.8% Vierzon silica and 0.4% magnesium carbonate.^[4]

Randan was a holiday destination of the royal family of the House of Orléans in the early nineteenth century, thanks to the Château in Randan.

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.
^ "Definitions of randanite", Drictionry.net, retrieved 2017-09-01
^ Figuier, Louis (1891), Les Merveilles de la science ou description populaire des inventions modernes (in French), vol. 2 des Suppléments, pp. 81-152)., Furne, Jouvet et Cie, retrieved 2017-09-01