St Etiennes des gres

Saint-Etienne-des-Gres is a parish municipality in Quebec (Canada) located in the Maskinonge Regional County Municipality and the Mauricie administrative region.

The municipality is named in honor of Deacon Etienne and Lord Etienne de La Fond; the word gres refers to the presence of rocks called sandstone in the soil.

The municipality contains two villages, Saint-Etienne-des-Gres in the center and Saint-Thomas-de-Caxton which is located on the boundary with Yamachiche. It also has a hamlet, Lavoie, which is located 3 km east of Saint-Thomas.

The whole of Saint-Etienne-des-Gres contains 1,591 dwellings in 2006, of which 1,515 are permanently inhabited. Of this number, 87.5% are single-family homes, 3.6% are semi-detached homes, 2% are duplex apartments, 3% are apartments with less than five floors and finally 3% are in another category, which includes mobile homes. 86.1% of the dwellings are owned, which is higher than the provincial average (60%). 70% of the dwellings were built before 1986 and 10.2% require major repairs. The value of the owned dwellings is $103,770, compared to $182,399 for the province.

The municipality is part of the St. Lawrence Lowlands. The altitude is low and less than 100 m and there are several plateaus whose altitude decreases towards the Saint-Maurice and the Saint-Laurent. The altitude ranges from 13 m in the Saint-Maurice River to 129 m at the limit of Saint-Barnabe.