Following the conquest of the
Sundgau and other parts of the Alsace by France in the course of the
Thirty Years' War and the
Peace of Westphalia, the French crown took a growing interest in the control and security of the land west of the
Rhine at the
Rhine knee below the territory of the
Canton of Basel (which joined the
Old Swiss Confederacy in 1501). In 1679, therefore, as part of a deliberation proclamation of his continued expansion policy on the
Upper Rhine (which included the capture of
Colmar in 1673, the defeat of
imperial and
Palatine troops at
Türckheim, the plundering of the town in 1675, and the
Treaties of Nijmegen in 1679),
Louis XIV ordered the construction of
Hüningen Fortress at this strategic point. The occupants of the place, the fishing village of Hüningen, had to leave to make way for this military fortification, the construction of which was carried out by fortress architect,
Vauban in 1680. The villagers were rehoused in the newly founded
Village-Neuf and on the road from Basle to
Paris via
Mulhouse, where the first element of the present day village of Saint-Louis was established on the state border. This settlement, consisting of several border guards and taverns was initially part of the municipality of Hüningen's "new village". On 26 November 1684 — around 3 years after the high point of France's policy of annexation or — the capture of
Strasbourg - the town was officially named by Louis XIV. Its patron is not actually the
Sun King himself, but his predecessor, the
canonized King
Louis IX or Saint Louis. In the course of the
French Revolution the town was renamed from 1793 to 1814 as Bourglibre (). In 1953 the municipality of
Bourgfelden was incorporated and was followed in 1958 by the village of Neuweg () from
Blotzheim. Since then most of the land of
Basel-Mulhouse Airport has been on the soil of the town of Saint-Louis. On 30 October 2000 the community association of was formed in Saint-Louis where it also has its head office. The association was turned into an
agglomeration community in 2016. ==Geography==