LOIRE (lwahr)
The
longest river in France
Common
clues:
France's
longest river; French wine valley; Nante's river; River of Tours;
Bay of Biscay feeder; Orlean's river; Its valley is dotted with
chateaux
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
4 times a year
Frequency
in English language:
26120 / 86800
News:
Loire
wines win new fans
Video:
Cathedral
of Orleans along the Loire River
The
Loire River, the longest river in France with a length of just
over 1000 km, drains an area of 117,000 km², more than a
fifth of France. The central part of the Loire Valley was added
on the World Heritage Sites list by the UNESCO on December 2,
2000.
The
name "Loire" comes from Latin Liger, which is itself a
transcription of the native Gaulish (Celtic) name of the river.
The Gaulish name of the river comes from the Gaulish word liga,
which means "silt, sediment, deposit, alluvium", and
which gave French lie, which in turn gave English lees. Liga
comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *legh-, meaning "to
lie, lay", which gave many words in English, such as to lie,
to lay, ledge, law, etc.
In
French the adjective derived from the river is ligérien,
as in le climat ligérien ("the climate of the Loire
Valley"), a climate considered the most pleasant of northern
France, with warmer winters and, more generally, fewer extremes
in temperatures than in more continental climates.
Originating
in the north-eastern part of the southern Cévennes
highlands, the Loire flows roughly northward through Roanne and
Nevers to Orléans and thereafter westward through Tours to
the Atlantic at Nantes. The river's irregularity has sometimes
resulted in serious flooding, notably in 1856, 1866 and 1910.
The
Loire River in Orleans, France.
Unlike
most other rivers in Western Europe, there are very few dams or
locks creating obstacles to its natural flow (the Villerest dam,
built in 1985 a few kilometers south of Roanne, has played a
key-role in preventing recent flooding). As a result, the Loire
is a very popular river for boating excursions, flowing through a
pastoral countryside, past limestone cliffs and storybook
castles.
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Loire River".
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