Sallanches

Sallanches (Salenches) is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department of France. Located close to the Mont Blanc massif, many visitors pass through the town en route to well-known alpine resorts such as Chamonix, Megève and Saint-Gervais-les-Bains. Sallanches is also one of the towns in the Arve Valley, made popular by the presence of many high-tech industries. Over 300 retail stores are located in Sallanches, making the town a commercial hub. In 2018, the commune had a population of 16,508, and its urban area had 46,128 inhabitants.

In 2015 Sallanches hospital announced that, as part of the government's "groupements hospitaliers de territoire" policy, it would develop a specialist accident department to research and develop mountain-related emergency medicine, because of its proximity to, and past experience of, dealing with accidents occurring in the nearby high mountains. With an emergency team of 30 doctors and emergency staff, plus 50 support staff, it is expected that the new mountain medicine department will become a world-leader in developing treatments and researching into altitude sickness, frostbite, hypoxia, trauma-injuries and related sports medicine.

Geography
Sallanches is a commune located in the far east of France in the historical region of Savoy. The town is located close to the Swiss and Italian borders.

Transport
The commune has a railway station, Sallanches-Combloux-Megève, on the La Roche-sur-Foron–Saint-Gervais-les-Bains-Le Fayet line.

Climate
According to both the Köppen–Geiger and Trewartha climate classification systems, Sallanches features a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen Cfb; Trewartha Do) with no dry season. It is relatively near a Köppen warm-summer humid continental climate (Dfb) or Trewartha temperate continental climate (Dc) due to moderate elevation and continentality.

The average annual rainfall is very high due to its location in the northwestern part of the Alps. Summers are warm to hot and stormy while winters are cold to very cold and snowy.

Climate
On average, Sallanches experiences 97.6 days per year with a minimum temperature below 0 C, 4.9 days per year with a minimum temperature below -10 C, 8.3 days per year with a maximum temperature below 0 C, and 23.4 days per year with a maximum temperature above 30 C. The record high temperature was 40.2 C on 11 July 2023, while the record low temperature was -20.3 C on 6 January 1985.

Media
Sallanches is mentioned in American author Willa Cather's 1935 novel Lucy Gayheart.

Twin towns

 * 🇩🇪 Spaichingen, Germany, since 1970