Barcelonnette (French pronunciation: [baʁsəlɔnɛt]; Occitan: Barciloneta de Provença, also Barcilona; obsolete Italian: Barcellonetta) is a commune of France and a subprefecture in the department of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region.

It is located in the southern French Alps, at the crossroads between Provence, Piedmont and the Dauphiné, and is the largest town in the Ubaye Valley.

[6] The Barcelonnette region was populated by Ligures from the 1st millennium BC onwards, and the arrival of the Celts several centuries later led to the formation of a mixed Celto-Ligurian people, the Vesubians.

[12] Following the Roman conquest of Provence, Barcelonnette was included in a small province with modern Embrun as its capital and governed by Albanus Bassalus.

[17] During Charles V's invasion of Provence in 1536, Francis I of France sent the Count of Fürstenberg's 6000 Landsknechte to ravage the area in a scorched earth policy.

In 1628, during the War of the Mantuan Succession, Barcelonnette and the other towns of the Ubaye Valley were pillaged and burned by Jacques du Blé d'Uxelles and his troops, as they passed through towards Italy to the Duke of Mantua's aid.

The town was retaken by the Duke of Savoy in 1630; and in 1691 it was captured by the troops of the Marquis de Vins during the War of the League of Augsburg.

[18] At this time, the community of Barcelonnette successfully purchased the seigneurie of the town as it was put to auction by the Duke of Savoy; it thereby gained its own justicial powers.

[21] The viguerie of Barcelonnette (also comprising Saint-Martin and Entraunes) was reattached to France in 1713 as part of a territorial exchange with the Duchy of Savoy during the Treaties of Utrecht.

Barcelonnette was one of few settlements in Haute-Provence to acquire a Masonic Lodge before the Revolution, in fact having two: In March 1789, riots took place as a result of a crisis in wheat production.

The arrival of troops on 16 December put a final end to the republican resistance without bloodshed, and 57 insurgents were tried; 38 were condemned to deportation (though several were pardoned in April).

On the edges of Barcelonnette and Jausiers there are several houses and villas of colonial style (known as maisons mexicaines), constructed by emigrants to Mexico who returned to France between 1870 and 1930.

A plaque in the town commemorates the deaths of ten Mexican citizens who returned to Barcelonnette to fight in the First World War.

[40] Barcelonnette is also exposed to the possibility of a technological hazard in that road transport of dangerous materials is allowed to pass through on the RD900.

An école normale (an institute for training primary school teachers) was founded in Barcelonnette in 1833, and remained there until 1888 when it was transferred to Digne.

[54] In 2010 the lycée André-Honnorat opened a boarding school aimed at gifted students of poorer social backgrounds, in order to give them better conditions in which to study.

[55][56] It is located in the Quartier Craplet, formerly the garrison of the 11th Battalion of Chasseurs Alpins and then the French Army's Centre d'instruction et d'entraînement au combat en montagne (CIECM).