ALES, South France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Gard, 25m. N.N.W' of Nimes on the P.L.M. railway Pop. (ii) 30,685. The town is at the foot of the Cevennes, on the left bank of the Gardon, which half surrounds it. The prox imity of the high plateau—a region of social difficulty and pov erty—made Ales in the 16th century an important Huguenot centre. In 1629 it was taken by Louis XIII. A bishopric was established here in 1694 but suppressed in 1790. The church of St. Jean is a heavy building of the 18th century. Ales has associa tions with Pasteur and Dumas. The town is one of the most important markets for raw silk and cocoons in the south of France, and the Gardon supplies power to numerous silk-mills. It is also the centre of a mineral field, which yields coal, iron, silver, zinc and antimony ; its blast-furnaces, foundries, tanneries, distilleries, glass-works and engineering works afford employment to many workmen.
Ales has a tribunal of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, and a school of mines. In 1926 the name of the town was changed from Alais to Ales.