Delémont

Delémont, in German Delsberg, is a town of about 12,600 inhabitants and the capital of the Swiss canton of Jura. The area was already settled in the middle Bronze Age, with fifteen urn burials discovered in the municipality, late Bronze Age settlements south and west of the modern city, Iron Age buildings south of the town and evidence of a Roman settlement that includes a Gallo-Roman mausoleum and a small cache of coins. The first historic mention of the name dates from 736 to 737 as Delemonte, the German name Telsperg is first recorded in 1131, and the name combines the Germanic Tello or Dagili with the Latin word mons for mountain. From the 7th century the region belonged to the lands of the counts of Alsace, in 1271 it was sold to the Bishop of Basel, and by then it consisted of a fortified village and two castles. Bishop Peter Reich von Reichenstein declared the city to have municipal rights on 6 January 1289, which allowed it some self-governance.