Map - Yvonand

Yvonand is a municipality in the district of Jura-Nord Vaudois (former Yverdon) of the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.

Located on the southwestern shore of Lake Neuchâtel the village has a population of almost 2,500 which may rise to 7,000 in summer, due to the popularity of the sandy beaches, which gently shelve into the lake.

Yvonand has a long tradition of settlement. Approximately 4,000 years BC, the caves in the Vallon of Vaux were used as first places of settlement. Some cave paintings date from this time. In the Bronze Age, settlements were made of wooden stakes in Yvonand bay.

The area around Yvonand village was settled during the Roman era, on the road between Eburodunum (Yverdon) and Aventicum (Avenches). At Mordagne to the west of the Mentue, the foundation walls of a Roman villa were excavated, which was established around 100 years after Christ. The traces of a settlement, to which a Heiligtum (a Gallo-Roman temple) also belonged, was probably inhabited in the year 400.

Yvonand is first mentioned in 1010 as Evonant. The designations Ivonant (1100) appeared later, de Vonant in the 12th Century, Eyvonant (1437) and Yvonant (1453). The place name derives from the Germanic family name Evo and the word 'nant', which signifies a brook or a valley.

During the Burgundian Wars in 1476, Yvonand came under the administration of Grandson, which was itself under the common rule of Bern and Fribourg; situated at the southern lakeshore it had its own Court of Justice. In 1531 the commune joined the reformation.

After the collapse of the Ancien Régime and during the period of Napoleon's Helvetic Republic, from 1798 to 1803, Yvonand was forced to join the Canton of Léman, which afterwards became Canton Vaud. In 1798, it was assigned to the district of Yverdon.