Limousin
Limousin is a former administrative region of France. On 1 January 2016, it became part of the new region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, it comprised three departments: Corrèze, Haute-Vienne. Situated in the south central French Massif Central, Limousin had 742,770 inhabitants spread out on nearly 17,000 km², making it the least populated region of metropolitan France. Forming part of the southwest of the country, Limousin is bordered by the regions of Centre-Val de Loire to the north, Poitou-Charentes and Aquitaine to the west, Midi-Pyrénées to the south and Auvergne to the east. Limousin is part of the larger Occitania region; the modern region of Limousin is composed of two historical French provinces: Limousin: the department of Corrèze in its entirety and the central and southeastern part of Haute-Vienne. The entire old province of Limousin is contained within the modern Limousin. Marche: most of the department of Creuse and the north of Haute-Vienne; the old province of Marche is entirely contained within the modern region of Limousin, with only a small part of Marche now belonging to the region of Centre.
Beside these two main provinces, Limousin is composed of small parts of other former provinces: Angoumois: extreme south-west of Haute-Vienne Poitou: extreme west of Haute-Vienne Auvergne: extreme east of Creuse Berry: extreme north of CreuseToday the province of Limousin is the most populous part of the Limousin region. Limoges, the historical capital and largest city of the province of Limousin, is the capital of the Limousin administrative region. With a rising population of just under 750,000, Limousin is the second-least populous region in Metropolitan France after Corsica; the population of Limousin is aging and, until 1999, was declining. The department of Creuse has the oldest population of any in France. Between 1999 and 2004 the population of Limousin increased reversing a decline for the first time in decades. Brive-la-Gaillarde Guéret Limoges Panazol Saint-Junien Tulle Ussel Limousin is an rural region. Famed for some of the best beef farming in the world, herds of Limousin cattle—a distinctive chestnut red—are a common sight in the region.
The region is a major timber producing area. Due to its rural locality, it is famed for its groves of French Oak, so prized for its distinct characters and flavors in wine fermentation that vintner Rémy Martin has exclusive rights to its oak groves, it is a partnership, over 100 years old. The regional capital, was once an industrial power base, world-renowned for its porcelain and still a leader and innovator in electric equipment factories. However, large factories are now few in number. Limousin is the poorest region in Metropolitan France; some of the rivers belonging to the Loire basin run through the north and east of the region, waterways belonging to that of the Dordogne through the south. The region is crossed by three major rivers: the Dordogne and the Charente; the region is well known for offering first-rate fishing. The Limousin region is entirely an upland area; the lowest land is in the northwest of the region and the highest land is in the southeast. However, the greater part of the region is above 350 m.
Limousin is one of the traditional provinces of France. Its name is derived from the name of a Celtic tribe, the Lemovices which capital was in Saint-Denis-des-Murs and which main sanctuary was found in Tintignac, a site which became a major site for the Celtics studies thanks to unique objects which were found such as the carnyces, unique in the whole Celtic world. Aimar V of Limoges was a notable ruler of the region; until the 1970s, Occitan was the primary language of rural areas. There remain several different Occitan dialects in use in Limousin, although their use is declining; these are: Limousin dialect Auvergnat dialect in the East/North-East Languedocien in the Southern fringe of Corrèze in the North, the Crescent transition area between Occitan and French is sometimes considered as a separate dialect called Marchois. Pâté aux pommes de terre is one of the specialties of Limousin, as well as of the neighbouring department of Allier. Clafoutis is a local dessert. Due to its rural character, Limousin has maintained a strong tradition of traditional music, with ancient instruments such as the bagpipe and hurdy-gurdy remaining popular.
Festival 1001 Notes, music festival in Haute-Vienne, August Festival de La Vezere, music festival in Corrèze July–August Festival du Haut Limousin, music festival in Haute-Vienne, July–August La Borie en Limousin, foundation of music in Haute-Vienne Limousin, a breed of beef cattle bred in the Limousin region and recognisable by their chestnut red coloring. Limousin, the Occitan dialect of the region. TER Limousin Limousin: the “château d'eau” - Official French website Limousin regional council website, with a presentation video in English. Art in the Limousin region History and Geography
Angoulême
Angoulême is a commune, the capital of the Charente department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of southwestern France. The inhabitants of the commune are known as Angoumoisines. Located on a plateau overlooking a meander of the Charente River, the city is nicknamed the "balcony of the southwest"; the city proper's population is a little less than 42,000 but it is the centre of an urban area of 110,000 people extending more than fifteen kilometres from east to west. The capital of Angoumois in the Ancien Régime, Angoulême was a fortified town for a long time, was coveted due to its position at the centre of many roads important to communication, so therefore it suffered many sieges. From its tumultuous past, the city, perched on a rocky spur, inherited a large historical and urban heritage which attracts a lot of tourists. Nowadays, Angoulême is at the centre of an agglomeration, one of the most industrialised regions between Loire and Garonne, it is a commercial and administrative city with its own university of technology, a vibrant cultural life.
This life is dominated by the Angoulême International Comics Festival, the FFA Angoulême Francophone Film Festival and the Musiques Métisses Festival that contribute to the international renown of the city. Moreover, Angoulême hosts 40 animation and video game studios that produce half of France's animated production; the city is developing filming for both French television and cinema. Wes Anderson chose Angoulême for his next movie at the end of 2018. Angoulême is called "Ville de l'Image" which means "City of the Image"; the commune has been awarded four flowers by the National Council of Towns and Villages in Bloom in the Competition of cities and villages in Bloom. Angoulême is an Acropolis city located on a hill overlooking a loop of the Charente limited in area upstream by the confluence of the Touvre and downstream by the Anguienne and Eaux Claires. Angoulême is located at the intersection of a major north-south axis: the N10 Paris-Bayonne. Angoulême is connected to Périgueux and Saint-Jean-d'Angely by the D939 and to Libourne by the D674.
By train: the Paris-Bordeaux line, served by TGV, passes through Angoulême and the TER Limoges-Saintes provides connections. By water: although the river Charente is only used for tourism, it was a communication channel for freight, until the 19th century and the port of l'Houmeau was busy; the Angoulême-Cognac International Airport is at Brie-Champniers. Old Angoulême is the old part between the ramparts and the town centre with winding streets and small squares; the city centre is located on the plateau and was portrayed by Honoré de Balzac in "The Lost Illusions" as "the height of grandeur and power". There is a Castle, a town hall, a prefecture, a cathedral with grand houses everywhere. Unlike Old Angoulême, the entire city centre was rebuilt in the 19th century. Surrounding the city were five old faubourgs: l'Houmeau, Saint-Cybard, Saint-Martin, Saint-Ausone, la Bussatte; the district of l'Houmeau was described by Balzac as "based on trade and money" because this district lived on trade and their scows.
The port of l'Houmeau was created in 1280 on the river bank. It marked the beginning of the navigable part from Angoulême to the sea. Saint-Cybard, on the bank of the Charente, was created around the Abbey of Saint-Cybard became an industrial area with papermills Le Nil. Saint-Martin - Saint-Ausone is a district composed of two former parishes outside the ramparts. At La Bussatte the Champ de Mars esplanade is now converted into a shopping mall, adjoins Saint-Gelais. Today the city has fifteen districts: Centre-ville Old Angoulême Saint-Ausone - Saint-Martin Saint-Gelais La Bussatte - Champ de Mars L'Houmeau Saint-Cybard Victor-Hugo, Saint-Roch is notable for its military presence. Basseau is a district, created in the 19th century with the port of Basseau, the explosives factory in 1821, the Laroche-Joubert papermill in 1842 the bridge in 1850. Sillac - La Grande-Garenne was a private housing estate was built up with HLM units. Bel-Air, la Grand Font in the railway station district with housing blocks from the 1950s at Grand Font.
La Madeleine, rebuilt after the bombings of 1944. Ma Campagne is a district, detached from Puymoyen commune in 1945 and built-up as a collective habitat from 1972. Le Petit Fresquet was detached from Puymoyen and is semi-rural. Frégeneuil was detached from Puymoyen and is semi-rural; the Port-l'Houmeau, the old port on the Charente located in the district of l'Houmeau is in a flood zone and during floods the Besson Bey Boulevard is cut. Geologically the town belongs to the Aquitaine Basin as does three quarters of the western department of Charente; the commune is located on the same limestone from the Upper Cretaceous period which occupies the southern half of the department of Charente, not far from Jurassic formations beginning at Gond-Pontouvre. The earliest Cretaceous period - the Cenomanian- is in the low areas, at an average altitude of 50m; the city was established on the Plateau that dominates the loop of the River Charente, a Turonian formation which forms a dissected plateau of parallel valleys and a cuesta facing north that extends towards La Couronne to the west and Garat to the east
Geographic coordinate system
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection; the invention of a geographic coordinate system is credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene, who composed his now-lost Geography at the Library of Alexandria in the 3rd century BC. A century Hipparchus of Nicaea improved on this system by determining latitude from stellar measurements rather than solar altitude and determining longitude by timings of lunar eclipses, rather than dead reckoning. In the 1st or 2nd century, Marinus of Tyre compiled an extensive gazetteer and mathematically-plotted world map using coordinates measured east from a prime meridian at the westernmost known land, designated the Fortunate Isles, off the coast of western Africa around the Canary or Cape Verde Islands, measured north or south of the island of Rhodes off Asia Minor.
Ptolemy credited him with the full adoption of longitude and latitude, rather than measuring latitude in terms of the length of the midsummer day. Ptolemy's 2nd-century Geography used the same prime meridian but measured latitude from the Equator instead. After their work was translated into Arabic in the 9th century, Al-Khwārizmī's Book of the Description of the Earth corrected Marinus' and Ptolemy's errors regarding the length of the Mediterranean Sea, causing medieval Arabic cartography to use a prime meridian around 10° east of Ptolemy's line. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes' recovery of Ptolemy's text a little before 1300. In 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England as the zero-reference line; the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911.
In order to be unambiguous about the direction of "vertical" and the "horizontal" surface above which they are measuring, map-makers choose a reference ellipsoid with a given origin and orientation that best fits their need for the area they are mapping. They choose the most appropriate mapping of the spherical coordinate system onto that ellipsoid, called a terrestrial reference system or geodetic datum. Datums may be global, meaning that they represent the whole Earth, or they may be local, meaning that they represent an ellipsoid best-fit to only a portion of the Earth. Points on the Earth's surface move relative to each other due to continental plate motion and diurnal Earth tidal movement caused by the Moon and the Sun; this daily movement can be as much as a metre. Continental movement can be up to 10 m in a century. A weather system high-pressure area can cause a sinking of 5 mm. Scandinavia is rising by 1 cm a year as a result of the melting of the ice sheets of the last ice age, but neighbouring Scotland is rising by only 0.2 cm.
These changes are insignificant if a local datum is used, but are statistically significant if a global datum is used. Examples of global datums include World Geodetic System, the default datum used for the Global Positioning System, the International Terrestrial Reference Frame, used for estimating continental drift and crustal deformation; the distance to Earth's center can be used both for deep positions and for positions in space. Local datums chosen by a national cartographical organisation include the North American Datum, the European ED50, the British OSGB36. Given a location, the datum provides the latitude ϕ and longitude λ. In the United Kingdom there are three common latitude and height systems in use. WGS 84 differs at Greenwich from the one used on published maps OSGB36 by 112 m; the military system ED50, used by NATO, differs from about 120 m to 180 m. The latitude and longitude on a map made against a local datum may not be the same as one obtained from a GPS receiver. Coordinates from the mapping system can sometimes be changed into another datum using a simple translation.
For example, to convert from ETRF89 to the Irish Grid add 49 metres to the east, subtract 23.4 metres from the north. More one datum is changed into any other datum using a process called Helmert transformations; this involves converting the spherical coordinates into Cartesian coordinates and applying a seven parameter transformation, converting back. In popular GIS software, data projected in latitude/longitude is represented as a Geographic Coordinate System. For example, data in latitude/longitude if the datum is the North American Datum of 1983 is denoted by'GCS North American 1983'; the "latitude" of a point on Earth's surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the Equator and to each other; the North Pole is 90° N. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the Equator, the fun
Central European Time
Central European Time, used in most parts of Europe and a few North African countries, is a standard time, 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. The time offset from UTC can be written as UTC+01:00; the same standard time, UTC+01:00, is known as Middle European Time and under other names like Berlin Time, Warsaw Time and Romance Standard Time, Paris Time or Rome Time. The 15th meridian east is the central axis for UTC+01:00 in the world system of time zones; as of 2011, all member states of the European Union observe summer time. A number of African countries use UTC+01:00 all year long, where it is called West Africa Time, although Algeria and Tunisia use the term Central European Time. Central European Time is used in Albania, Austria, Belgium and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Kosovo, Luxembourg, North Macedonia, Monaco, Netherlands, Poland, San Marino, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland. 1884 Serbia starts using CET. 1890 The areas of current Croatia and Hungary start using CET. 1891 The areas of current Czech Republic start using CET. 1 April 1893 The German Empire unified its time zones to use CET.
Italy, Malta use CET. The areas of current Austria start using CET. 1894 Switzerland switches from UTC+00:30 to CET Liechtenstein introduces CET. Denmark adopts CET. 1895 Norway adopts CET. 1900 Sweden adopts CET. 1904 Luxembourg introduces CET, but leaves 1918. 1914 Albania adopts CET. 1914–1918 During World War I CET was implemented in all German-occupied territories. 1920 Lithuania adopts CET. 1922 Poland adopts CET. 1940 Under German occupation:The Netherlands was switched from UTC+00:20 to CET. Belgium was switched from UTC+00:00. Luxembourg was switched from UTC+00:00. France, which had adopted Paris time on 14 March 1891 and Greenwich Mean Time on 9 March 1911, was switched to CET. Spain switched to CET. After World War II Monaco and Gibraltar implemented CET. Portugal used CET in the years 1966–1976 and 1992–1996. United KingdomThe time around the world is based on Universal Coordinated Time, synonymous with Greenwich Mean Time. From late March to late October, clocks in the United Kingdom are put forward by one hour for British Summer Time.
Since 1997, most of the European Union aligned with the British standards for BST. In 1968 there was a three-year experiment called British Standard Time, when the UK and Ireland experimentally employed British Summer Time all year round. Central European Time is sometimes referred to as continental time in the UK. Several African countries use UTC+01:00 all year long, where it called West Africa Time, although Algeria and Tunisia use the term Central European Time, despite being located in North Africa. Between 2005 and 2008, Tunisia observed daylight saving time. Libya used CET during the years 1951–1959, 1982–1989, 1996–1997 and 2012–2013. For other countries see West Africa Time. Legal and economic, as well as physical or geographical criteria are used in the drawing of time zones so official time zones adhere to meridian lines; the CET time zone, were it drawn by purely geographical terms, would consist of the area between meridians 7°30′ E and 22°30′ E. As a result, there are European locales that despite lying in an area with a "physical" UTC+01:00 time use another time zone.
Conversely, there are European areas that have gone for UTC+01:00 though their "physical" time zone is UTC, UTC−01:00, or UTC+02:00. On the other hand, the people in Spain still have all work and meal hours one hour than France and Germany if they have the same time zone. Following is a list of such "incongruences": Historically Gibraltar maintained UTC+01:00 all year until the opening of the land frontier with Spain in 1982 when it followed its neighbour and introduced CEST; these areas are located between 7°30′ E and 22°30′ E The westernmost part of Greece, including the cities of Patras and the island of Corfu The westernmost parts of the Bulgarian provinces of Vidin and Kyustendil The westernmost part of Romania, including most of the area of the counties of Caraș-Severin, Timiș, Bihor, as well as the westernmost tips of the counties of Mehedinți and Satu Mare The westernmost tip of Ukraine, near the border with Hungary and Slovakia, at the Ukrainian Transcarpathian Oblast comprising the city of Uzhhorod and its environs..
Western Lithuania, including the cities of Klaipėda, Tauragė, Telšiai Western Latvia, including the cities of Liepāja and Ventspils The westernmost parts of the Estonian islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, including the capital of the Saare County, Kuressaare The southwestern coast of Finland, including the city of Turku. The Russian exclave of Kaliningr
Departments of France
In the administrative divisions of France, the department is one of the three levels of government below the national level, between the administrative regions and the commune. Ninety-six departments are in metropolitan France, five are overseas departments, which are classified as regions. Departments are further subdivided into 334 arrondissements, themselves divided into cantons; each department is administered by an elected body called a departmental council. From 1800 to April 2015, these were called general councils; each council has a president. Their main areas of responsibility include the management of a number of social and welfare allowances, of junior high school buildings and technical staff, local roads and school and rural buses, a contribution to municipal infrastructures. Local services of the state administration are traditionally organised at departmental level, where the prefect represents the government; the departments were created in 1790 as a rational replacement of Ancien Régime provinces with a view to strengthen national unity.
All of them were named after physical geographical features, rather than after historical or cultural territories which could have their own loyalties. The division of France into departments was a project identified with the French revolutionary leader the Abbé Sieyès, although it had been discussed and written about by many politicians and thinkers; the earliest known suggestion of it is from 1764 in the writings of d'Argenson. They have inspired similar divisions in some of them former French colonies. Most French departments are assigned a two-digit number, the "Official Geographical Code", allocated by the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. Overseas departments have a three-digit number; the number is used, for example, in the postal code, was until used for all vehicle registration plates. While residents use the numbers to refer to their own department or a neighbouring one, more distant departments are referred to by their names, as few people know the numbers of all the departments.
For example, inhabitants of Loiret might refer to their department as "the 45". In 2014, President François Hollande proposed to abolish departmental councils by 2020, which would have maintained the departments as administrative divisions, to transfer their powers to other levels of governance; this reform project has since been abandoned. The first French territorial departments were proposed in 1665 by Marc-René d'Argenson to serve as administrative areas purely for the Ponts et Chaussées infrastructure administration. Before the French Revolution, France gained territory through the annexation of a mosaic of independent entities. By the close of the Ancien Régime, it was organised into provinces. During the period of the Revolution, these were dissolved in order to weaken old loyalties; the modern departments, as all-purpose units of the government, were created on 4 March 1790 by the National Constituent Assembly to replace the provinces with what the Assembly deemed a more rational structure.
Their boundaries served two purposes: Boundaries were chosen to break up France's historical regions in an attempt to erase cultural differences and build a more homogeneous nation. Boundaries were set so that every settlement in the country was within a day's ride of the capital of a department; this was a security measure, intended to keep the entire national territory under close control. This measure was directly inspired by the Great Terror, during which the government had lost control of many rural areas far from any centre of government; the old nomenclature was avoided in naming the new departments. Most were named after other physical features. Paris was in the department of Seine. Savoy became the department of Mont-Blanc; the number of departments 83, had been increased to 130 by 1809 with the territorial gains of the Republic and of the First French Empire. Following Napoleon's defeats in 1814–1815, the Congress of Vienna returned France to its pre-war size and the number of departments was reduced to 86.
In 1860, France acquired the County of Nice and Savoy, which led to the creation of three new departments. Two were added from the new Savoyard territory, while the department of Alpes-Maritimes was created from Nice and a portion of the Var department; the 89 departments were given numbers based on the alphabetical order of their names. The department of Bas-Rhin and parts of Meurthe, Moselle and Haut-Rhin were ceded to the German Empire in 1871, following France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. A small part of Haut-Rhin became known as the Territoire de Belfort; when France regained the ceded departments after World War I, the Territoire de Belfort was not re-integrated into Haut-Rhin. In 1922, it became France's 90th department; the Lorraine departments were not changed back to their original boundaries, a new Moselle department was created in the regaine
listen); Saintongeais: Chérente; Occitan: Charanta) is a department in southwestern France, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, named after the Charente River, the most important river in the department, and also the river beside which the department's two largest towns, Angoulême and Cognac, are sited.
. Encyclopædia Britannica. 5 (11th ed.). 1911.
