Plessisville () is a

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

of L'Érable Regional County Municipality,

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. Routes 116 and 165 go through it. The city is 185 km from

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

and 95 km from

Quebec City Quebec City is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Census Metropolitan Area (including surrounding communities) had a populati ...

. The city has hosted an annual Maple festival since 1958, and the ''Institut québécois de l'érable'' (Quebec Maple Institute) is headquartered there. The production of

maple syrup Maple syrup is a sweet syrup made from the sap of maple trees. In cold climates, these trees store starch in their trunks and roots before winter; the starch is then converted to sugar that rises in the sap in late winter and early spring. Ma ...

and maple products is a major industry in the entire area, even giving the

regional county municipality The term regional county municipality or RCM (, , MRC) is used in Quebec, Canada to refer to one of 87 county-like political entities. In some older English translations they were called county regional municipality. Regional county municipalit ...

its name (''érable'' is French for "maple"). The first person to permanently settle in the area was Jean-Baptiste Lafond, in 1835. First incorporated as the village of Somerset, the settlement was officially incorporated as the village of Plessisville in 1855 in honour of Monseigneur Octave Plessis,

bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

at the time. In 2024, the city and the parish merged to form the current city.

History

Plessisville was officially established on January 1, 2024, following the merger of the former city of Plessisville and the parish municipality of Plessisville. Plessisville's history dates back to 1835, when its first resident, Jean-Baptiste Lafond, settled in the area. By 1845, the population had grown to approximately 143 people, making it the oldest municipality in the Bois-Francs region. In 1885, a fire destroyed sixty homes, the foundry, the presbytery, and the church, marking a major turning point in its development.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...

, the merged city of Plessisville 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.

Notable people

* Denis Blondin, anthropologist * Mavrik Bourque, hockey player * Pierre Bourque, saxophonist * Pierre-Andre Fournier, Roman Catholic Archbishop * Raymond Garneau, politician * Louis-Édouard Roberge, politician * François-Théodore Savoie, politician * Pierre Vachon, president of IB Quebec

Sources

*
Official City website
*
Quebec Maple Institute
*
Maple Festival

References

{{authority control Cities and towns in Quebec Incorporated places in Centre-du-Québec