MONTÉLIMAR, a town of south-eastern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Drôme, near the left bank of the Rhone, 93 m. S. of Lyons on the railway to Marseilles. Pop. (1906), town, 9162; commune, 13,554. The ancient castle is now used as a prison. Remains of the ramparts and four old gates are also preserved. The chief public institutions are the sub-prefecture, the tribunal of first instance and the communal college. The industries include flour-milling, silk-throwing and spinning, and the manufacture of hats, lime, farming implements, preserved foods and nougat.
Montélimar was called by the Romans Acunum. At a later period it belonged to the family of Adhémar and received the name Monteil d’Adhémar, whence the present name. Towards the middle of the 14th century it was sold by them partly to the dauphins of Viennois and partly to the pope, and in the next century it came into the possession of the Crown. During the religious wars it valiantly resisted Gaspard de Coligny in 1570, but was taken by the Huguenots in 1587.