History of the villages of the Morges district (Vaud)
The 75 documented localities of the Morges district, in the canton of Vaud. Each page covers the origin of the name, the main stages of its history and its remains, with sources.
Towns and villages 74
Aclens
In 1675 the town of Morges bought the lordship of Aclens, which also included Romanel and Bremblens.
VDAllaman
On Lake Geneva, Allaman castle controlled the crossing of the Aubonne. The pacifist Jean-Jacques de Sellon reportedly received Joseph Bonaparte there.
VDApples
Given by a king of Burgundy to the abbey of Romainmôtier in 1011, this village at the foot of the Vaud Jura became, almost a thousand years later, the birthplace of Logitech.
VD · TownAubonne
In 1670 Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, a gem merchant returned from the East, bought the barony of Aubonne and joined its two castles around an arcaded courtyard.
VDBallens
Village at the foot of the Jura built on a former island in the marshes, where the shooting society L'Abbaye was founded as early as 1609.
VDBerolle
The last lord of Berolle, a small village at the foot of the Jura, was Jacques Necker, the Genevan financier and baron of Coppet.
VDBière
In 1871 more than a thousand soldiers of the Bourbaki army were interned at Bière. The graves of those who died there remain in this village at the foot of the Jura, a federal army training ground.
VDBougy-Villars
Bougy enters history in 996 through a vineyard given to the priory of Romainmôtier. Today its wines belong to the Féchy appellation.
VDBremblens
Between the Venoge and the Morges, a village of vines and fields that, in the early 1970s, chose houses over blocks of rented flats.
VDBuchillon
On Lake Geneva, near the Aubonne delta, Buchillon inherited the estate of Chanivaz: a parish in 1228, a toll on the Aubonne and the remains of a large villa with a peristyle.
VDBussy-Chardonney
Bussy and Chardonney were united, separated, reunited and separated again before merging in 1961. Sixty years later the village became part of the municipality of Hautemorges.
VDChanivaz
A large Roman villa, then the largest locality in the area in the Middle Ages: what remains is a protected farming estate in the Aubonne delta.
VDChavannes-le-Veyron
On the bank of the Veyron the village housed the medieval leper house of Cossonay, and later a water-powered sawmill still working in the 1960s. A Hallstatt burial mound lies at la Motte.
VDChevilly
The painter Charles Gleyre was born in 1806 in Chevilly, a lordship of the Gingins family until 1798, between the Venoge and the Veyron.
VDChigny
The Duruz and Vuffray families, named in a deed of 1495, are still present today in Chigny, a village on the right bank of the Morges.
VDClarmont
The Roman road from Nyon to Yverdon ran through Clarmont, where a few Roman coins have been found. On the Morges, the Chantemerle mill was already working in the 16th century.
VDColombier
At the end of the Middle Ages the lords of Colombier were among the most influential nobles of the Pays de Vaud. One of them had the present château built around 1500.
VD · TownCossonay
The town of the lords of Cossonay looks down on its station: since 1897 a funicular has linked the two, originally running on water counterweights.
VDCottens
Around 1840-1865 the château of Cottens hosted private agricultural teaching, before official agricultural education began in Vaud in 1870.
VDCrausaz
The Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem held a commandery at Crausaz as early as 1228. Its church reportedly drew many pilgrims before the Reformation.
VDCuarnens
A manorial mill stood on the Venoge as early as 1141, and the canal dug in 1692 has housed a fish farm since 1968. Long before, a Roman villa with baths occupied the area.
VDDenens
A Romainmôtier parchment dated 3 March 1005 names «Disnens» for the first time. In 2005 the village celebrated this millennium. Vines have been grown here since the 11th century.
VDDenges
Since 1969 the SBB marshalling yard has taken up 17 hectares of Denges, about a tenth of the territory of this Venoge village between Morges and Lausanne.
VDDizy
In Dizy a single mid-19th-century building housed the church, the school and the dairy. Only the church has stayed.
VDEchandens
Georges Simenon lived from 1957 to 1963 in the castle of Echandens, built in the 16th century near the Venoge and bought by the municipality in 1978.
VDEchichens
In 1802, during the Bourla-Papey uprising, Echichens lost most of its archives.
VDEclépens
On the Mormont, around 100 BC, the Helvetii left more than 200 pits filled with deposits: perhaps a sanctuary, and still a puzzle.
VDEtoy
A former priory of the Grand-Saint-Bernard turned château on the shore of Lake Léman, Etoy is also home to one of Chiquita's two world headquarters.
VDFéchy
Twenty-three noble fiefs shared the land of this wine village on La Côte, and Their Excellencies of Bern bought them up one by one until 1731.
VDFerreyres
At the place called Bossena some twenty ironworking sites operated from the late La Tène period to the early 7th century: Ferreyres owes its name to iron.
VDGimel
In the 19th century an alkaline spring made Gimel, at the foot of the Jura, a holiday resort. In 2027 the village is due to give its name to the municipality merged with Saubraz and Saint-Oyens.
VDGland (Vullierens)
A row of old farmhouses above the vine-covered slope, already drawn on the Siegfried map of 1894: Gland is the other half of the municipality of Vullierens.
VDGollion
Between 1615 and 1631 Gollion, with about 200 inhabitants, reportedly saw 27 witch trials and 25 executions. The condemned were burned at Cossonay.
VDGrancy
At En Allaz, the remains of a Roman villa built near the Yverdon-Aubonne road show an occupation that lasted into Burgundian times.
VD · Merger 2021Hautemorges
Six communes of the Morges district joined on 1 July 2021, after a project started by seven and the exit of Clarmont.
VDJoulens
In the Middle Ages the town of Morges depended on the parish church of Notre-Dame at Joulens, on the slope above it.
VDL'Isle
Near the source of the Venoge, Charles de Chandieu, an officer of Louis XIV, had a château built in 1694-1696 that is nicknamed the little Versailles of Vaud.
VDLa Chaux (Cossonay)
Given to the Templars before 1223, then passed to the Hospitallers, La Chaux housed the main commandery of the Order of St John in the Pays de Vaud. Two Maltese crosses adorn its coat of arms.
VDLa Coudre
Since 1583 the inhabitants of La Coudre have managed their property in common, first as the «confrérie de la Couldraz». In 2026 the village council voted to dissolve this «fraction de commune».
VD · TownLa Sarraz
In 1928 the castle of La Sarraz hosted the first International Congress of Modern Architecture. The following year Sergei Eisenstein came for a congress of independent cinema.
VDLavigny
Since 1996 the château built in 1770 by Gabriel-Henri de Mestral has hosted an international writers' residence, in memory of the publisher Heinrich Maria Ledig-Rowohlt.
VDLonay
Built in 1437, the Lonay tile works was among the most important in French-speaking Switzerland until 1913. In 1981 a women's prison was built on its site.
VDLully
Small wine-growing village west of Morges, given in 1018 to the abbey of Saint-Maurice, now a residential municipality.
VDLussy-sur-Morges
Above Morges, this farming and wine-growing village, whose inhabitants are nicknamed the Lucifers, belonged to the abbey of Saint-Maurice until 1536.
VDMauraz
A municipality of 45 hectares born in 1719, when five inhabitants obtained from the baron of Montricher the right to form an association of commoners.
VDMoiry
In the early 11th century King Rudolph III gave a manse at Moiry to Romainmôtier. The village, later disputed with the lords of La Sarraz, passed to the Gingins in 1633.
VDMollens
On its heights, the Mollendruz rock shelter holds traces of reindeer hunters from around 10 000 years before our era, at the end of the last glaciation.
VDMonnaz
The smallest village in Échichens, Monnaz keeps a church built in 1680, probably at the expense of its lord Gabriel de Vuillermin. A deacon is recorded there as early as the late 12th century.
VDMont-la-Ville
Mountain municipality on the south-east slope of the Jura along the Mollendruz road, whose Freymond rock shelter holds human traces dating back to the end of the Palaeolithic.
VDMontherod
In 1794 a clandestine workshop is said to have made forged French assignats at Montherod, at the instigation of the British ambassador in Berne.
VDMontricher
Its church's round bell tower, the only one in the canton of Vaud, is the last standing tower of the castle built here in 1049.
VD · TownMorges
Louis I of Savoy founded it in 1286 around his castle. Its Bronze Age lakeshore villages have been on the World Heritage List since 2011.
VDOrny
In the late 15th century Orny's church of Notre-Dame was given a bell tower with a stone spire, a design borrowed from the Rhône valley and the Chablais.
VDPampigny
Bought by the commune for 22'000 francs in 1836 or 1837, the Mestral château at the foot of the knoll became the village school.
VDPizy
In 1374 Guillaume de Pizy, provost of the Grand-Saint-Bernard and a native of the place, founded at Pizy a fortified hospice with a chapel for the upkeep of twelve canons.
VDPompaples
A village at the foot of the Jura nicknamed the «middle of the world», where the waters divide at the Bornu mill between the Rhine and the Rhône, and home to the Saint-Loup hospital.
VDPréverenges
Off Préverenges lie two prehistoric lakeside sites and the Île aux Oiseaux, an artificial islet built in 2001-2002 for migrating birds.
VDReverolle
Mentioned as early as 1177, when its church came under the Grand-Saint-Bernard, Reverolle joined five neighbouring villages in 2021 to form the new municipality of Hautemorges.
VDRoman
At Roman-Dessus, above Morges, graves of the 6th-8th centuries yielded bracelets, a sword, earthenware vessels and a small balance.
VDRomanel-sur-Morges
A village mentioned in 967 as the «villa Romanella» of the canons of Saint-Jean in Besançon, where Logitech settled in 1981 in the Moulin du Choc zone.
VDSaint-Livres
Compact village on the crest of a slope on the left bank of the Aubonne, named after Pope Saint Liberius, among vineyards, fields and forests.
VDSaint-Oyens
Saint-Oyens takes its name from an oratory founded by the Jura abbey of Saint-Claude, formerly Saint-Oyend. The village is due to join Gimel on 1 January 2027.
VD · TownSaint-Prex
In 1234 the chapter of Lausanne moved the whole village to the shore of Lake Geneva and walled it in. The name comes from a bishop reportedly buried here in the 7th century.
VDSaint-Saphorin-sur-Morges
A château built around 1725 for General de Saint-Saphorin, later held by the Mestral family: Georges de Mestral, the inventor of Velcro, was born here in 1907.
VDSaubraz
Saubraz's communal bread oven, recorded from 1752, is still in use. The village at the foot of the Jura is due to merge into the new municipality of Gimel on 1 January 2027.
VDSenarclens
Settled since Roman times, Senarclens was in the Middle Ages a fief of the lordship of Cossonay. Of its fortified house, remodelled in 1584, only a tower remains.
VDSévery
Recorded from 1228, the Sévery mill still runs, now as a walnut oil press. The village, mentioned in 979, has been part of Hautemorges since 2021.
VDTolochenaz
Some forty graves discovered at Le Boiron in 1823 gave their name to the « civilisation du Boiron ». Ignacy Jan Paderewski, and later Audrey Hepburn, lived in Tolochenaz.
VDVaux-sur-Morges
In 1851 Vaux-sur-Morges put up a single building to house both its chapel and its municipal hall.
VDVillars-Bozon
Under the Ancien Régime the village formed a single community with L'Isle and La Coudre, but kept its own property: a deed of 1768 refers to the «commune particulière de Villars-Bozon».
VDVillars-sous-Yens
A village whose Saint-Bernard chapel belonged in 1177 to the hospice of the Great St Bernard, and where a hoard of about a hundred 3rd-century coins was found in 1823.
VDVufflens-le-Château
Above the Morges, Henri de Colombier built a brick fortress of Piedmontese inspiration in the early 15th century, on the site of an older castle.
VDVullierens
Since 1955 the gardens of Vullierens castle, built by the Mestral in 1706-1712, have housed one of the largest iris collections in Europe.
VDYens
During the famine of 1628 the inhabitants reportedly roasted acorns to make bread: hence, according to tradition, their nickname «Fumas».