Loire River
Loire River, the longest river in France, rising in the southern Massif Central and flowing north and west for 634 miles (1,020 km) to the Atlantic Ocean, which it enters south of the Bretagne (Brittany) peninsula. Its major tributary is the Allier, which joins the Loire at Le Bec d’Allier. Its drains an area of about 45,000 square miles (117,000 square km). The picturesque valley is dotted with châteaux.
The river rises at about 4,500 feet (1,370 metres) above sea level, at the foot of the Gerbier de Jonc in the Cévennes near the Mediterranean coast. In its upper course it flows through a succession of downfaulted, flat-floored basins set in the highlands of the Massif Central. Crossing them, its valley narrows to gorges. After being joined by the Allier, the greatly enlarged stream flows across the limestone platform of Berry, and its valley becomes only a slight groove.
The upper course of the Loire tends to flow north toward the centre of the Paris Basin, but it then swings in a great curve past Orléans and flows westward to the sea by its long estuary at Nantes.
The Loire Basin has a temperate maritime climate, with no consistent dry season and with heavy precipitation, including winter snowfall, in the highlands that occupy its upper basin. The area of its headwaters is also subject to violent autumn storms from the Mediterranean. The river is usually highest in late winter, but there is no reliable rule; floods may occur in any month, though normally not in July and August.
In its middle course, the river occupies a shallow but steep-sided groove. Its once-marshy floodplain is protected from flooding by levées (“embankments”) built progressively from the 12th to the 19th century. Effective agricultural reclamation began in the 14th century and was stimulated by the presence of the French court in the 15th and 16th centuries, when the middle Loire valley sustained a strip of land intensively cultivated for cash crops. In the 18th century, before the French Revolution, it reached the peak of its prosperity. The river was the great highway for movement of goods, and the cities on its banks were busy ports. During the period of developing river traffic in the 17th and 18th centuries, canal links were built connecting the Loire navigation with the Seine system of navigable waterways, which allowed products to be carried to Paris. These connecting canals are too narrow for modern vessels, and their use is limited. Left behind by modern developments, the Loire countryside remains predominantly rural, Old World, and little affected by modern industry.