LOIRET INFORMATION
LOIRET Geography
Loiret is part of the current region of Centre (Val de Loire) and is surrounded by the departments of Cher, Loir-et-Cher and Eure-et-Loir, in the region of Ile-de-France by the departments of Seine-et-Marne and Essonne, in the region of Burgundy the departments of Yonne and Nièvre.
Loiret is a department in north-central France named after the river Loiret.
The Loiret is a 12 km long river in France, left tributary to the Loire River. Its waters come from infiltrations from the Loire.
Its course is completely within the Loiret département, to which it gives its name.
The Loiret, south of Orléans, with its picturesque former mills, is a popular destination for walking and boating trips. The source of the Loiret is in Orléans-la-Source, and its mouth in Saint-Hilaire-Saint-Mesmin, southwest of Orléans.
LOIRET History
Loiret is one of the original 83 departments that was created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from the former province of Orléanais.
Orléanais is a former province of France, around the cities of Orléans, Chartres, and Blois.
The name comes from Orléans, its main city and traditional capital. The province was one of those into which France was divided before the French Revolution. It was the country around Orléans, the pagus Aurelianensis; it lay on both banks of the Loire, and for ecclesiastical purposes formed the diocese of Orléans. It was in the possession of the Capet family before the advent of Hugh Capet to the throne of France in 987, and in 1344 Philip VI gave it with the title of duke to Philip of Valois (d. 1375), one of his younger sons. In a geographical sense the region around Orléans is sometimes known as the Orléanais, but this is somewhat smaller than the former province.
Orléanais was also a dialect of the French language spoken in the province of Orléanais until the beginning of the 19th century.
LOIRET Tourism
Orléans is a popular tourist destination, with its cathedral of Ste. Croix.
Orléans is located in the septentrional bend of the Loire, which crosses from east to west. Orléans belongs to the vallée de la Loire sector between Sully-sur-Loire and Chalonnes-sur-Loire, which was in 2000 inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The capital of Orléanais, 120 kilomètres south-south-west of Paris, it is bordered to the north by the Beauce region and the forêt d'Orléans, and the Orléans-la-Source neighborhood and the Sologne region to the south.
To the south of the Loire (on the "rive gauche") is to be found a small hill (102m at the pont Georges-V, 110m at the place du Martroi) which gently rises to 125m at la Croix Fleury, at the limits of Fleury-les-Aubrais.
Conversely, the north (on the "rive droite") has a gentle depression to about 95 m above sea level (at Saint-Marceau) between the Loire and the Loiret, designated a "zone inondable" (flood-risk zone).
At the end of the 1960s the Orléans-la-Source quarter was created, 12 kilometres (7 mi)to the south of the original commune and separated from it by the Val d'Orléans and the Loiret River (whose source is in the Parc Floral de la Source). This quarter's altitude varies from about 100 to 110m.
Orléans is an autoroute intersection : the A10 (linking Paris to Bordeaux) links to the commune outskirts, and A71 (whose bridge over the Loire is outside the commune limits) begins here, heading for the Mediterranean via Clermont-Ferrand (where it becomes the A75).
LOIRET Administration
Department number : 45
Region : Centre
Prefecture : Orléans
Subprefectures : Montargis, Pithiviers
Arrondissements : 3
Cantons : 41
Communes : 334
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