Saint-Hilarion is a

parish municipality A parish is an administrative division used by several countries. To distinguish it from an ''ecclesiastical parish'', the term ''civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is ...

in Charlevoix Regional County Municipality, in the administrative region of

Capitale-Nationale Capitale-Nationale (; en, National Capital region) is one of the 17 administrative regions of Quebec. It is anchored by the provincial capital, Quebec City, and is largely coextensive with that city's metropolitan area. It has a land area of 18,7 ...

of the

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Geography

A few lakes such as Lac aux Bois-Verts and Lac à la Mine dot the territory. Inserted in the heart of the hinterland, at an altitude of 400 m, Saint-Hilarion sees its landscape marked by the church built on a hill which dominates the surrounding countryside, with several important farms.

History

Colonization of the area began in 1830 with the arrival of the first clearers from the Éboulements. In 1864, the parish of Saint-Hilarion-de-Settrington was erected both civilly and canonically, which gave birth to the municipality of the township of Settrington in 1855, which became the municipality of the parish of Saint-Hilarion in 1956. The post office, opened in 1860, also takes the name of the township proclaimed in 1822, taken from that of a village in English

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...

. In 1892, it will receive its current name, identical to that of the municipality.

Toponymy

As the Saint-Hilarionian winters were hasty and harsh, it is believed that the choice of the name of Saint Hilarion, a very austere monk from the beginning of Christianity, was imposed. Born in Tabatha, Palestine, around 291, he was to die around 371. In the north of the island of

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...

a church Byzantine Architecture of the 10th century which bears the name of Saint-Hilarion. This extraordinary ancient site includes the ruins of a

château A château (; plural: châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions. Now ...

built around a once important hermitage.

Personalities

The most famous son of Saint-Hilarion remains the journalist

Olivar Asselin Olivar Asselin (November 8, 1874 – April 18, 1937) was a writer and journalist in Quebec, Canada. He was a prominent nationalist, pamphleteer and polemist. Biography Asselin was born in Saint-Hilarion, Charlevoix, Quebec. His name is a co ...

(1874-1937) who participated in the founding of the newspaper ''

Le Devoir ''Le Devoir'' (, "Duty") is a French-language newspaper published in Montreal and distributed in Quebec and throughout Canada. It was founded by journalist and politician Henri Bourassa in 1910. ''Le Devoir'' is one of few independent large-c ...

'' in 1910.

Geology

The municipality of Saint-Hilarion lies about ten kilometers from the center of the

Charlevoix impact structure The Charlevoix impact structure is a large eroded meteorite impact structure in the Charlevoix region of Quebec, Canada. Only part of the impact structure is exposed at the surface, the rest lying beneath the Saint Lawrence River. Descriptio ...

, discovered in 1968 and which, in 2009, is considered the thirteenth largest impact structure identified on Earth. (The municipality of Les Éboulements being the center). Its soil, as in many municipalities in Charlevoix, is full of

impactite Impactite is rock created or modified by one or more impacts of a meteorite. Impactites are considered metamorphic rock, because their source materials were modified by the heat and pressure of the impact. On Earth, impactites consist primarily o ...

, rocky material found at the site of a meteoric impact. An asteroid with a diameter of 2 kilometers struck the Charlevoix region about 350 million years ago, creating an impact structure 56 kilometers in diameter. The Charlevoix region is known for its regular seismic activity within the Charlevoix Seismic Zone, even if the tremors are not always felt. There is a tremor every two days, very weak

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

. Major earthquakes felt in Saint-Hilarion: *1534, (IX on the Mercalli scale), *1663, (IX on the Mercalli scale), *1791, (VIII on the Mercalli scale), *1870, (IX on the Mercalli scale), *1925, (6.2 on the

Richter scale The Richter scale —also called the Richter magnitude scale, Richter's magnitude scale, and the Gutenberg–Richter scale—is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Francis Richter and presented in his landmark 1935 ...

), *1988, (5.9 on the Richter scale).

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by Statistics Canada, Saint-Hilarion had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021. Population trend:Statistics Canada: 1996, 2001, 2006, 2011 census * Population in 2011: 1181 (2006 to 2011 population change: -0.8%) * Population in 2006: 1191 * Population in 2001: 1148 * Population in 1996: 1215 * Population in 1991: 1185 Mother tongue: * English as first language: 0% * French as first language: 100% * English and French as first language: 0% * Other as first language: 0%