to represent their sections until 1971. Le Châble Starting in the 12th century, Le Châble was the administrative center of the entire Val de Bagnes. Verbier castle (also called the abbaye) is first mentioned in 1287. The castle came to be known as the abbaye since it was the seat of the abbey of Saint-Maurice's representative. In 1410 the castle was rebuilt into a residence of the abbots. In 1476 it was partially destroyed by the villagers. In 1745 it was besieged during the revolt against the abbot of Saint-Maurice. The castle was acquired in the 20th century by the municipality. The facade of the late gothic parish church of St. Mauritius was built in 1520 and the choir was finished in 1534. The ossuary dates back to 1560 and the parish house to the 16th century. In 1953, the village was connected to the Martigny-Sembrancher-Le Châble rail line. Geography Bagnes had an area, , of . Of this area, 15.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while 12.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 1.9% is settled (buildings or roads) and 70.1% is unproductive land. It consists of the former municipal seat of Le Châble along with multiple villages and hamlets, including Villette, Bruson and Verbier. The resort Verbier is part of the municipality. The reservoir Lac de Mauvoisin is located at Bagnes. Coat of arms The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Azure, two Men proper in a Bath-tub Or. Demographics Bagnes had a population (as of 2019) of 8,144. , 26.3% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 24.3%. It has changed at a rate of 29.3% due to migration and at a rate of 2.7% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks French (5,714 or 87.4%) as their first language, Portuguese is the second most common (246 or 3.8%) and English is the third (178 or 2.7%). There are 139 people who speak German, 99 people who speak Italian and 2 people who speak Romansh. , the gender distribution of the population was 51.5% male and 48.5% female. The population was made up of 2,750 Swiss men (36.1% of the population) and 1,169 (15.3%) non-Swiss men. There were 2,769 Swiss women (36.4%) and 929 (12.2%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 3,508