Les Chenaux Regional County Municipality

Les Chenaux
Regional county municipality
Coordinates: 46°30′N72°25′W / 46.500°N 72.417°W / 46.500; -72.417[1]
Country	Canada
Province	Quebec
Region	Mauricie
Effective	January 1, 2002
County seat	Saint-Luc-de-Vincennes
Government [2]
• Type	Prefecture
• Prefect	Gérard Bruneau
Area [2][3][4]
• Total	934.40 km^2 (360.77 sq mi)
• Land	872.04 km^2 (336.70 sq mi)
Population  (2011)[3][4]
• Total	17,865
• Density	20.5/km^2 (53/sq mi)
• Pop 2006-2011	5.2%
• Dwellings	8,393
Time zone	UTC−5 (EST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 (EDT)
Area codes	819, 418 or 581
Website	www.mrcdeschenaux.ca

Les Chenaux (French pronunciation:[leʃəno], meaning the channels in French) is a regional county municipality in central Quebec, Canada, in the Mauricie region. The seat is in Saint-Luc-de-Vincennes. It is located adjacent on the east of Trois-Rivières on the Saint Lawrence River. It has a land area of 872.04 square kilometres (336.70 sq mi) and a population of 17,865 inhabitants in the Canada 2011 Census.^[4] Its largest community is the parish of Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel.

Les Chenaux is one of the few regional county municipalities in Quebec that does not constitute its own census division; instead, it is grouped with Trois-Rivières as the single census division of Francheville.

Saint-Luc-de-Vincennes, signs at the intersection of Route 359 South and North, Rang Saint-Alexis and direction to Highway 40

Geography

The "Les Chenaux" RCM is an area east of Trois-Rivières, located between the villages of Champlain and Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade on north shore of St. Lawrence River. The MRC is approximately 40 km in length to about 20 kilometers in depth. The territory is crossed by three rivers flowing from north to south: Champlain River, Batiscan River and Sainte-Anne River.

History

The RCM was created in 2002, when the area was realigned to make way for the amalgamations of nearby Trois-Rivières and Shawinigan. All of the municipalities, except for Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel (which came from Centre-de-la-Mauricie RCM), used to belong to the former Francheville Regional County Municipality. This RCM was dissolved when six of its municipalities amalgamated with the city of Trois-Rivières, and Saint-Étienne-des-Grès was added to the Maskinongé RCM. The remaining municipalities were grouped into a new regional county called Les Chenaux.

Subdivisions

There are 10 subdivisions within the RCM:^[2]

Municipalities (6) Batiscan Champlain Saint-Luc-de-Vincennes Saint-Prosper-de-Champlain Saint-Stanislas Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade

Parishes (4) Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel Saint-Maurice Saint-Narcisse Sainte-Geneviève-de-Batiscan

Demography

Municipalities of "Les Chenaux" RCM

Municipality	Status	Area	Population(2006)	Density
Batiscan	Municipality	44,02 km^2	937 hab.	21,3 inhabitants/km^2
Champlain	Municipality	58,59 km^2	1 583 hab.	27,0 inhabitants/km^2
Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel	Municipality of parish	126,61 km^2	5 300 hab.	41,9 inhabitants/km^2
Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade	Municipality	107,94 km^2	2 145 hab.	19,9 inhabitants/km^2
Sainte-Geneviève-de-Batiscan	Municipality of parish	97,09 km^2	1 125 hab.	11,6 inhabitants/km^2
Saint-Luc-de-Vincennes	Municipality	52,73 km^2	613 hab.	11,6 inhabitants/km^2
Saint-Maurice	Municipality of parish	90,33 km^2	2 308 hab.	25,6 inhabitants/km^2
Saint-Narcisse	Municipality of parish	103,49 km^2	1 852 hab.	17,9 inhabitants/km^2
Saint-Prosper	Municipality	92.03 km^2	555 hab.	6.0 inhabitants/km^2
Saint-Stanislas	Municipality	86,37 km^2	1 077 hab.	12,5 inhabitants/km^2
Total		859,20 km^2	17 495 hab.	20,4 inhabitants/km^2

Transportation

Access routes

Highways and numbered routes that run through the municipality, including external routes that start or finish at the county border:^[5]

Autoroutes A-40

Principal Highways R-138 R-157 R-159

Secondary Highways R-352 R-354 R-359 R-361 R-209

External Routes None

Photos

• Land of running water and countless lakes
• 
  Batiscan, Slipway, commercial fisherman, St. Lawrence River
• 
  Sainte-Geneviève-de-Batiscan, the Rivière à Veillet flows into the Batiscan
• 
  Saint-Narcisse, Lac-à-la-Tortue bog
• 
  Saint-Maurice (Quebec), Au Lard River, agricultural zone
• 
  Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade, Ste-Anne river, the installation of the winter fishing village
• 
  Saint-Prosper-de-Champlain, rivière Charest, tributary of the Sainte-Anne River
• 
  Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel, Rivière Cachée
• 
  Champlain, Champlain River near its mouth
• 
  Saint-Stanislas, Batiscan River, Parish church, presbytery, municipality

See also

• List of regional county municipalities and equivalent territories in Quebec
• Lordship of Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade
• Lordship of Batiscan
• Lordship of Champlain

References

1. "Banque de noms de lieux du Québec: Reference number 375747". toponymie.gouv.qc.ca (in French). Commission de toponymie du Québec.
2. "Répertoire des municipalités: Geographic code 372". www.quebec.ca (in French). Gouvernement du Québec.
3. 2011 Statistics Canada Census Profile: Francheville (Stats include City of Trois-Rivières figures)
4. Derived indirectly by subtracting the data for Trois-Rivières census subdivision from the data for Francheville census division (view side-by-side).
5. Official Transport Quebec Road Map