1.
Bordeaux
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Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France. The municipality of Bordeaux proper has a population of 243,626, together with its suburbs and satellite towns, Bordeaux is the centre of the Bordeaux Métropole. With 749,595 inhabitants and 1,178,335 in the area, it is the fifth largest in France, after Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Lille. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture of the Gironde department and its inhabitants are called Bordelais or Bordelaises. The term Bordelais may also refer to the city and its surrounding region, Bordeaux is the worlds major wine industry capital. It is home to the main wine fair, Vinexpo. Bordeaux wine has been produced in the region since the 8th century, the historic part of the city is on the UNESCO World Heritage List as an outstanding urban and architectural ensemble of the 18th century. After Paris, Bordeaux has the highest number of preserved buildings of any city in France. In historical times, around 300 BC it was the settlement of a Celtic tribe, the Bituriges Vivisci, the name Bourde is still the name of a river south of the city. In 107 BC, the Battle of Burdigala was fought by the Romans who were defending the Allobroges, a Gallic tribe allied to Rome, the Romans were defeated and their commander, the consul Lucius Cassius Longinus, was killed in the action. The city fell under Roman rule around 60 BC, its importance lying in the commerce of tin, later it became capital of Roman Aquitaine, flourishing especially during the Severan dynasty. In 276 it was sacked by the Vandals, further ravage was brought by the same Vandals in 409, the Visigoths in 414 and the Franks in 498, beginning a period of obscurity for the city. In the late 6th century, the city re-emerged as the seat of a county and an archdiocese within the Merovingian kingdom of the Franks, the city started to play a regional role as a major urban center on the fringes of the newly founded Frankish Duchy of Vasconia. Around 585, a certain Gallactorius is cited as count of Bordeaux, the city was plundered by the troops of Abd er Rahman in 732 after storming the fortified city and overwhelming the Aquitanian garrison. After Duke Eudess defeat, the Aquitanian duke could still save part of its troops, the following year, the Frankish commander descended again over Aquitaine, but clashed in battle with the Aquitanians and left to take on hostile Burgundian authorities and magnates. In 745, Aquitaine faced yet another expedition by Charles sons Pepin and Carloman against Hunald, Hunald was defeated, and his son Waifer replaced him, who in turn confirmed Bordeaux as the capital city. During the last stage of the war against Aquitaine, it was one of Waifers last important strongholds to fall to King Pepin the Shorts troops. Next to Bordeaux, Charlemagne built the fortress of Fronsac on a hill across the border with the Basques, in 778, Seguin was appointed count of Bordeaux, probably undermining the power of the Duke Lupo, and possibly leading to the Battle of Roncevaux Pass that very year
2.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
3.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
4.
Pyrenees
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The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain. For the most part, the main crest forms a divide between France and Spain, with the microstate of Andorra sandwiched in between. The Crown of Aragon and the Kingdom of Navarre have historically extended on both sides of the range, with smaller northern portions now in France and larger southern parts now in Spain. The demonym for the noun Pyrenees in English is Pyrenean, in Greek mythology, Pyrene is a princess who gave her name to the Pyrenees. The Greek historian Herodotus says Pyrene is the name of a town in Celtic Europe, Hercules, characteristically drunk and lustful, violates the sacred code of hospitality and rapes his hosts daughter. Pyrene gives birth to a serpent and runs away to the woods, alone, she pours out her story to the trees, attracting the attention of wild beasts who tear her to pieces. After his victory over Geryon, Hercules passes through the kingdom of Bebryx again, and all the rock-cliffs and wild-beast haunts echo back Pyrene. … The mountains hold on to the name through the ages. Pliny the Elder connects the story of Hercules and Pyrene to Lusitania, the Spanish Pyrenees are part of the following provinces, from east to west, Girona, Barcelona, Lleida, Huesca, Navarra and Gipuzkoa. The French Pyrenees are part of the following départements, from east to west, Pyrénées-Orientales, Aude, Ariège, Haute-Garonne, Hautes-Pyrénées, the independent principality of Andorra is sandwiched in the eastern portion of the mountain range between the Spanish Pyrenees and French Pyrenees. Physiographically, the Pyrenees may be divided into three sections, the Atlantic, the Central, and the Eastern Pyrenees, together, they form a distinct physiographic province of the larger Alpine System division. In the Western Pyrenees, from the Basque mountains near the Bay of Biscay of the Atlantic Ocean, at the eastern end on the southern side lies a distinct area known as the Sub-Pyrenees. On the French side the slopes of the range descend abruptly. The Pyrenees are older than the Alps, their sediments were first deposited in coastal basins during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras, the intense pressure and uplifting of the Earths crust first affected the eastern part and moved progressively to the entire chain, culminating in the Eocene Epoch. The eastern part of the Pyrenees consists largely of granite and gneissose rocks, the massive and unworn character of the chain comes from its abundance of granite, which is particularly resistant to erosion, as well as weak glacial development. Low passes are lacking, and the roads and the railroads between France and Spain run only in the lowlands at the western and eastern ends of the Pyrenees. A notable visual feature of mountain range is La Brèche de Roland, a gap in the ridge line. Coal deposits capable of being profitably worked are situated chiefly on the Spanish slopes, the open pit of Trimoun close to the commune of Luzenac is one of the greatest sources of talc in Europe
5.
River mouth
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A river mouth is the part of a river where the river flows into a larger river, a lake, a reservoir or an ocean. The water from a river can enter the body in a variety of different ways. The motion of the river mainly depends on the density of the river compared to the receiving water and any ambient motion in the receiving water. If the river water is denser than the surface of the receiving water, the river water will then either form an underflow or an interflow within the lake. Alongside these advective transports, inflowing water will also diffuse, at the mouth of a river, the change in flow condition can cause the river to drop any sediment it is carrying. This sediment deposition can generate a variety of landforms, such as deltas, sand bars, spits, many places in England take their names from their positions at the mouths of rivers, for example Plymouth, Sidmouth and Great Yarmouth. Confluence River delta Estuary Liman Aber and Inver
6.
Gironde estuary
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The Gironde is a navigable estuary, in southwest France and is formed from the meeting of the rivers Dordogne and Garonne just downstream of the centre of Bordeaux. Covering around 635 km2, it is the largest estuary in western Europe, the Gironde is approximately 80 km long and 3–11 km wide and the French département Gironde is named after it. The Gironde is subject to strong tidal currents and great care is needed when navigating the estuary by any size or type of boat. In December 1942, during the Second World War, Operation Frankton took place with the goal of destroying shipping moored at the docks in Bordeaux and these German blockade runners were causing havoc in the Western Approaches. The raid was carried out by a unit of Royal Marines known as the Royal Marines Boom Patrol Detachment, part of Combined Operations. Within the estuary between the Pointe de Grave at the end and the Bec dAmbès are a series of small islands. The Île de Patiras is 200 ha in size with a lighthouse to aid navigation in the estuary, vines and maize are grown there. The Île Sans-Pain and Île Bouchaud are now virtually joined due to silting and are referred to as the Ile Nouvelle. They total about 265 ha and are owned by the Conservatoire du Littoral, the Île Paté is about 13 ha and in 2006 was privately owned. The island has a fort built between 1685 and 1693 as part of the national fortification program masterminded by Vauban. The building is oval in shape, about 12 metres high and was equipped with about 30 cannon. Fort Paté, together with Fort Médoc and the ancient citadelle of Blaye, defended the estuary, during the French Revolution the fort was used as a prison for priests. In 2006, the Conseil General decided to make the island a ZPENS, ZPENS status protects the island from development. If the owner wishes to sell the then the Department has a pre-emptive right. After two months the Conservatoire National du Littoral has the next pre-emptive right and then after another 2 months the town of Blaye has a final right to acquire the island. The Île Verte, Île du Nord and Île Cazeau comprise about 800 ha, the Île Margaux is 25 ha and in 2005 had 14 ha devoted to vines and is part of the world famous Médoc wine region
7.
Atlantic Ocean
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The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the worlds oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometres. It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earths surface and about 29 percent of its surface area. It separates the Old World from the New World, the Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean, in contrast, the term Atlantic originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word thalassa has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of years ago. The term Aethiopian Ocean, derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century, many Irish or British people refer to the United States and Canada as across the pond, and vice versa. The Black Atlantic refers to the role of ocean in shaping black peoples history. Irish migration to the US is meant when the term The Green Atlantic is used, the term Red Atlantic has been used in reference to the Marxian concept of an Atlantic working class, as well as to the Atlantic experience of indigenous Americans. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas varies, the Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, to the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar and Africa. In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean, the 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures 111,866 km compared to 135,663 km for the Pacific. Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of 106,460,000 km2 or 23. 5% of the ocean and has a volume of 310,410,900 km3 or 23. 3%. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers 81,760,000 km2 and has a volume of 305,811,900 km3, the North Atlantic covers 41,490,000 km2 and the South Atlantic 40,270,000 km2. The average depth is 3,646 m and the maximum depth, the bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It runs from 87°N or 300 km south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 42°S, the MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above 2000 m along most of its length, the MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other
8.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography 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. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys 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, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths 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, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
9.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
10.
Occitan language
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Occitan, also known as lenga dòc by its native speakers, is a Romance language. It is spoken in southern France, Italys Occitan Valleys, Monaco, and Spains Val dAran, collectively, Occitan is also spoken in the linguistic enclave of Guardia Piemontese. However, there is controversy about the unity of the language, others include Catalan in this family, as the distance between this language and some Occitan dialects is similar to the distance among different Occitan dialects. In fact, Catalan was considered an Occitan dialect until the end of the 19th century, today, Occitan is an official language in Catalonia, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken in the Val dAran. Since September 2010, the Parliament of Catalonia has considered Aranese Occitan to be the preferred language for use in the Val dAran. Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish, there is no written standard language called Occitan. Instead, there are competing norms for writing Occitan, some of which attempt to be pan-dialectal, There are also significant lexical differences, where some dialects have words cognate with French, and others have Catalan and Spanish cognates. Nonetheless, there is a significant amount of mutual intelligibility, the long-term survival of Occitan is in grave doubt. According to the UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages, four of the six dialects of Occitan are considered severely endangered. The name Occitan comes from lenga dòc, òc being the Occitan word for yes and this was not, of course, the only defining characteristic of each group. The word òc came from Vulgar Latin hoc, while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud, Old Catalan, and now the Catalan of Northern Catalonia also have hoc. Other Romance languages derive their word for yes from the Latin sic, thus, etc. such as Spanish sí, Eastern Lombard sé, Sicilian and Italian sì, or Portuguese sim. French uses si to answer yes in response to questions that are asked in the negative sense, the name Occitan is sometimes considered a neologism, however, it was attested around 1300 as occitanus, a crossing of oc and aquitanus. For many centuries, the Occitan dialects were referred to as Limousin or Provençal, after Frédéric Mistrals Félibrige movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for Occitan. The term first came into fashion in Italy, currently, linguists use the terms Provençal and Limousin strictly to refer to specific varieties within Occitania, keeping the name Occitan for the language as a whole. Many non-specialists, however, continue to refer to the language as Provençal, NO·L LI TOLRÀ NO·L LI DEVEDARÀ NI NO LEN DECEBRÀ. Nec societatem non AURÀ, si per castellum recuperare NON O FA, et si recuperare potuerit in potestate Froterio et Raimundo LO TORNARÀ, carolingian litanies, both written and sung in Latin, were answered to in Old Occitan by the audience. Occitan was the vehicle for the poetry of the medieval troubadours and trobairises, At that time
11.
Catalan language
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Catalan is a Romance language derived from Vulgar Latin and named after the medieval Principality of Catalonia, in northeastern modern Spain and adjoining parts of France. It is the national and only language of Andorra, and a co-official language of the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands. It also has status in the commune of Alghero, situated on the northwestern coast of the island of Sardinia. All these territories are often called Catalan Countries. 4% with Catalan and 47. 5% only Spanish, in order to integrate newcomers, the Generalitat de Catalunya spends part of its annual budget on the promotion of the use of Catalan in Catalonia and in other territories. Catalan evolved from Vulgar Latin in the Middle Ages around the eastern Pyrenees, during the Low Middle Ages it saw a golden age as the literary and dominant language of the Crown of Aragon, and was widely used all over the Mediterranean. The union of Aragon with the territories of Spain in 1479 marked the start of the decline of the language. In 1659 Spain ceded Northern Catalonia to France, and Catalan was banned in both states in the early 18th century, 19th-century Spain saw a Catalan literary revival, which culminated in the 1913 orthographic standardization, and the official status of the language during the Second Spanish Republic. However, the Francoist dictatorship banned the use of Catalan in schools and in the public administration, there is no parallel in Europe for such a large, bilingual, non-state speech community. Catalan dialects are relatively uniform, and are mutually intelligible and they are divided into two blocks, Eastern and Western, differing mostly in pronunciation. The terms Catalan and Valencian are two varieties of the same language, there are two institutions regulating the two standard varieties, the Institute of Catalan Studies in Catalonia and the Valencian Academy of the Language in the Valencian Community. Catalan shares many traits with its neighboring Romance languages, thus, the similarities are naturally most notable with eastern Occitan. Nouns have two genders, and two numbers, pronouns additionally can have a neuter gender, and some are also inflected for case and politeness, and can be combined in very complex ways. Verbs are split in several paradigms and are inflected for person, number, tense, aspect, mood, in terms of pronunciation, Catalan has many words ending in a wide variety of consonants and some consonant clusters, in contrast with many other Romance languages. The word Catalan derives from the territory of Catalonia, itself of disputed etymology, in English, the term referring to a person first appears in the mid 14th century as Catelaner, followed in the 15th century as Catellain. It is attested a language name since at least 1652, Catalan can be pronounced as /ˈkætəlæn/, /kætəˈlæn/ or /ˈkætələn/. The endonym is pronounced /kə. təˈɫa/ in the Eastern Catalan dialects, in the Valencian Community, the term valencià is frequently used instead. The names Catalan and Valencian are two names for the same language, see also status of Valencian below. By the 9th century, Catalan had evolved from Vulgar Latin on both sides of the end of the Pyrenees, as well as the territories of the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis to the south
12.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
13.
River
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A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of water, small rivers can be referred to using names such as stream, creek, brook, rivulet, and rill. There are no official definitions for the term river as applied to geographic features. Many names for small rivers are specific to geographic location, examples are run in parts of the United States, burn in Scotland and northeast England. Sometimes a river is defined as being larger than a creek, but not always, Rivers are part of the hydrological cycle. Potamology is the study of rivers while limnology is the study of inland waters in general. Extraterrestrial rivers of liquid hydrocarbons have recently found on Titan. Channels may indicate past rivers on other planets, specifically outflow channels on Mars and rivers are theorised to exist on planets, a river begins at a source, follows a path called a course, and ends at a mouth or mouths. The water in a river is confined to a channel. In larger rivers there is also a wider floodplain shaped by flood-waters over-topping the channel. Floodplains may be wide in relation to the size of the river channel. This distinction between river channel and floodplain can be blurred, especially in areas where the floodplain of a river channel can become greatly developed by housing. Rivers can flow down mountains, through valleys or along plains, the term upriver refers to the direction towards the source of the river, i. e. against the direction of flow. Likewise, the term describes the direction towards the mouth of the river. The term left bank refers to the bank in the direction of flow. The river channel typically contains a stream of water, but some rivers flow as several interconnecting streams of water. Extensive braided rivers are now found in only a few regions worldwide and they also occur on peneplains and some of the larger river deltas. Anastamosing rivers are similar to braided rivers and are quite rare
14.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
15.
Aquitanian language
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The Aquitanian language was spoken on both sides of the western Pyrenees in ancient Aquitaine and in the areas south of the Pyrenees in the valleys of the Basque Country before the Roman conquest. It probably survived in Aquitania until the Early Middle Ages, archaeological, toponymical, and historical evidence show that it was a Vasconic language or group of languages that represent a precursor of the Basque language. The most important pieces of evidence are a series of votive, Aquitanian and its related descendant, Basque, are commonly thought to be a remnant of the languages spoken in Western Europe before the arrival of Indo-European speakers. Cavalli-Sforza describes this weakest of the five patterns he obtained as isolated remnants of the population of Europe. It corresponds roughly to the spread of rhesus negative blood types. Cavalli-Sforzas conclusion that the Basques are a genetic isolate as well as a one has since been widely discussed. It may be possible to trace the Aquitanians more or less back to the Chalcolithic culture of Artenac, but the age of the Aquitanian language. Almost all of the Aquitanian inscriptions that have been north of the Pyrenees are in the territory that Greek. Anthroponyms, Belexeia, Lavrco, Borsei, Andereseni, Nescato, Cissonbonnis, Sembecconi, Gerexo, Bihossi, theonyms, Baigorixo, Ilunno, Arixoni, Artahe, Ilurberrixo, Astoiluno, Haravsoni, Leherenno etc. Theonyms, Larrahe, Loxae / Losae, Lacubegi, Selatse / Stelaitse, Helasse, since ancient times there have been indications of a relationship between Southwestern France and the Basques. During the Roman conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar, Aquitania was the territory between Garonne and the Pyrenees and it was inhabited by tribes of horsemen who Caesar said were very distinct in customs and language from the Celts of Gaul. During the Middle Ages, this territory was named Gascony, derived from Vasconia, there are many clues that indicate that Aquitanian was spoken in the Pyrenees, at least as far east as Val dAran. This strong formal element can be traced at either side of the range as far west as an imaginary line roughly stretching from Pamplona to Bayonne. Other than place-names and little evidence, the picture is not very clear at the west of the Basque Country. Archaeological findings in Iruña-Veleia in 2006 were initially claimed as evidence of the antiquity of Basque in the south but were dismissed as forgery. The Cantabrians are also mentioned as relatives or allies of Aquitanians, the Vascones who occupied modern Navarra, are usually identified with the Basques, their name being one of the most important pieces of evidence. In 1960, a stele with Aquitanian names was found in Lerga, Gorrochategui, Joaquín, Onomástica indígena de Aquitania, Bilbao. 609–34 Gorrochategui, Joaquín, The Basque Language and its Neighbors in Antiquity, Towards a History of the Basque Language, hoz, Javier de, El poblamiento antiguo de los Pirineos desde el punto de vista lingüístico, Muntanyes i Població
16.
Vielha e Mijaran
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Vielha e Mijaran is a municipality in Aran, Catalonia, Spain. Mijaran literally means Middle Aran in Aranese, as the part of the municipality is situated in the valley of the Garonne. The Noguera Ribagorçana has its source on the territory of the municipality, the ajuntament is in Vielha, spelled Viella in Catalan and Spanish, which is also the capital of Aran. The municipality is linked to France and to the rest of Catalonia by the N-230 road, the C-28 road continues up the valley to Naut Aran, and on over the Port de la Bonaigua to the comarca of Pallars Sobirà. This road, the stretches of which are impassable in winter, was the only route between the Aran valley and the rest of Spain before the opening of the Vielha tunnel in 1948. The municipality is composed of thirteen distinct settlements, guia de Catalunya, Barcelona, Caixa de Catalunya
17.
Val d'Aran
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Aran is an administrative entity in Catalonia, Spain, consisting of the Aran valley,620.47 square kilometres in area, in the Pyrenees mountains, in the northwestern part of the province of Lleida. Most of the valley one of only two areas of Spain, and the only part of Catalonia, located on the northern side of the Pyrenees. Hence, this holds the only Catalonian rivers to flow into the Atlantic Ocean, for the same reason. As of 2001, most people in Aran spoke Spanish as their language, followed by Aranese. Speakers of languages other than the local Aranese are typically people born outside the valley, Aran borders France on the north, the Spanish Autonomous Community of Aragon to the west and the Catalan comarques of Alta Ribagorça to the south and Pallars Sobirà to the east. The capital of the comarca is Vielha, with 3,692 inhabitants, the entire population of the valley is about 7,130. The Garonne river flows through Aran from its source on the Pla de Beret near the Port de la Bonaigua and it is joined by the Joèu river and passes underground at the Forau de Aigualluts. It then reappears in the Val dera Artiga before reaching the Aran valley, then through France, the Noguera Pallaresa river, whose source is only a hundred meters from that of the Garonne, flows the opposite way towards the Mediterranean. In 1313, James II of Aragon granted administrative and political autonomy to the Aran Valley, the devolution of power was a reward for the Aranese pledging allegiance to James II in a dispute with the kingdoms of France and Mallorca over control of the valley. On 19 October 1944, Spanish Communist Party guerrillas invaded the valley in an attempt to bring about the fall of the Spanish dictatorship. They took control of several villages until October 27,1944, before the construction of the Vielha tunnel, opened in 1948, the Aran valley had no direct communication with the south side of the mountains during winter. Aranese is the form of the Gascon variety of the Occitan language. Aranese has been taught at school since 1984. Like several other minority languages in Europe that recently faced decline, the name Aran comes from Basque haran, meaning valley. Maps and road signs in Spain use the name era Val dAran to refer to the valley, where era is the Aranese singular feminine article. The same practice goes for all towns and other locations in Aran, for example, Basque toponyms reveal that Basque was spoken further east along the Pyrenees than today. The growing influence of Latin began to drive Basque out after the turn of the first millennium, administratively, Aran is a unique territorial entity roughly equivalent to a comarca with additional powers, and informally referred to as a comarca. This status was most recently formalised in February 2015, the area is divided into six administrative divisions called terçons
18.
Aneto
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Aneto is the highest mountain in the Pyrenees and in Aragon, and Spains third-highest mountain, reaching a height of 3,404 metres. It stands in the Spanish province of Huesca, the northernmost of all three Aragonese provinces,4 miles south of the French border and it forms the southernmost part of the Maladeta massif. It is also locally known as Pic de Néthou in French. Aneto is located in the Posets-Maladeta Natural Park, in the municipality of Benasque, Huesca province, autonomous community of Aragon and it is part of the Maladeta massif and is located in the Benasque valley. It consists of Paleozoic terrain of a nature and Mesozoic materials. It is estimated that it has lost more than half of its surface in the last 100 years, initially, the great mass of granite did not even have a name. There are indications that the shepherds and hunters from the southern valleys referred to it as Malheta or Malahita or Punta, the first cultured traveller who saw it from the port of Benasque, Louis Ramond de Carbonnières, simply described its appearance as needles of ice in 1787. The highest point of the Pyrenees eventually inherited the name of a village on its south-eastern side, the French, on hearing the Argonese pronunciation of Aneto, retained the last two clearly accentuated phonetic syllables, ne and tu, ignoring the first syllable a. So these names were the toponyms that were then used and it took Émile Bellocs renown work on the Pyrenees to establish the name of Aneto as the official toponym, he consistently used that name in 1898 already. Some two miles away on its north-west fringe lies the Maladeta peak that, though not being among the five highest peaks in the environment and it subsequently earned the greatest interest of climbers, especially in the early 18th century. Until then, the Monte Perdido had been considered the highest and he fell in a crack in the ice on Maladeta. This caused a shock and the natives, already very fearful of venturing on the glacier. Aneto rises to 3,404 meters above sea level in the centre of the Pyrenees mountain range whose territories runs almost entirely along the border between France and Spain, the peak lies to the north-east of the province of Huesca and occupies the eastern end of the Malditos Mountains. The waters of the western and southern sides, however, meet in the Superior, Middle and Lower mountain lakes, today, global warming has reduced the portentous mass to eleven glaciers that total only three hundred acres. The Aneto-Maladeta massif sustains a total of 286 acres surface, representing more than half of all the glaciers in Spain - all of which being located in the Pyrenees. The rest cannot truly be defined as glaciers without contention, as they have lost all mobility, among these are the Cregüella, Alba and Salenques glaciers, which are in a major state of decline. However, even considering them as snowfields, their past glacier state has kept them to date, the mountains ascent is usually made from the Renclusa Refuge. From there, the itinerary traverses the longest part of the glacier that extends to the north of the peak, the summit is defended by a short rocky passage called the Bridge of Mohammed
19.
Sea level
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Mean sea level is an average level of the surface of one or more of Earths oceans from which heights such as elevations may be measured. A common and relatively straightforward mean sea-level standard is the midpoint between a low and mean high tide at a particular location. Sea levels can be affected by factors and are known to have varied greatly over geological time scales. The careful measurement of variations in MSL can offer insights into ongoing climate change, the term above sea level generally refers to above mean sea level. Precise determination of a sea level is a difficult problem because of the many factors that affect sea level. Sea level varies quite a lot on several scales of time and this is because the sea is in constant motion, affected by the tides, wind, atmospheric pressure, local gravitational differences, temperature, salinity and so forth. The easiest way this may be calculated is by selecting a location and calculating the mean sea level at that point, for example, a period of 19 years of hourly level observations may be averaged and used to determine the mean sea level at some measurement point. One measures the values of MSL in respect to the land, hence a change in MSL can result from a real change in sea level, or from a change in the height of the land on which the tide gauge operates. In the UK, the Ordnance Datum is the sea level measured at Newlyn in Cornwall between 1915 and 1921. Prior to 1921, the datum was MSL at the Victoria Dock, in Hong Kong, mPD is a surveying term meaning metres above Principal Datum and refers to height of 1. 230m below the average sea level. In France, the Marégraphe in Marseilles measures continuously the sea level since 1883 and it is used for a part of continental Europe and main part of Africa as official sea level. Elsewhere in Europe vertical elevation references are made to the Amsterdam Peil elevation, satellite altimeters have been making precise measurements of sea level since the launch of TOPEX/Poseidon in 1992. A joint mission of NASA and CNES, TOPEX/Poseidon was followed by Jason-1 in 2001, height above mean sea level is the elevation or altitude of an object, relative to the average sea level datum. It is also used in aviation, where some heights are recorded and reported with respect to sea level, and in the atmospheric sciences. An alternative is to base height measurements on an ellipsoid of the entire Earth, in aviation, the ellipsoid known as World Geodetic System 84 is increasingly used to define heights, however, differences up to 100 metres exist between this ellipsoid height and mean tidal height. The alternative is to use a vertical datum such as NAVD88. When referring to geographic features such as mountains on a topographic map, the elevation of a mountain denotes the highest point or summit and is typically illustrated as a small circle on a topographic map with the AMSL height shown in metres, feet or both. In the rare case that a location is below sea level, for one such case, see Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
20.
Sinkhole
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A sinkhole, also known as a cenote, sink, sink-hole, shakehole, swallet, swallow hole, or doline, is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. Most are caused by karst processes—for example, the dissolution of carbonate rocks or suffosion processes. Sinkholes vary in size from 1 to 600 m both in diameter and depth, and vary in form from soil-lined bowls to bedrock-edged chasms, sinkholes may form gradually or suddenly, and are found worldwide. Sinkholes may capture surface drainage from running or standing water, but may form in high. Sinkholes that capture drainage can hold it in limestone caves. These caves may drain into tributaries of larger rivers, the formation of sinkholes involves natural processes of erosion or gradual removal of slightly soluble bedrock by percolating water, the collapse of a cave roof, or a lowering of the water table. Sinkholes often form through the process of suffosion, for example, groundwater may dissolve the carbonate cement holding the sandstone particles together and then carry away the lax particles, gradually forming a void. Occasionally a sinkhole may exhibit a visible opening into a cave below, sinkholes also occur in sandstone and quartzite terrains. As the rock dissolves, spaces and caverns develop underground and these sinkholes can be dramatic, because the surface land usually stays intact until there is not enough support. Then, a collapse of the land surface can occur. Sinkholes also form from human activity, such as the collapse of abandoned mines and salt cavern storage in salt domes in places like Louisiana, Mississippi, more commonly, sinkholes occur in urban areas due to water main breaks or sewer collapses when old pipes give way. They can also occur from the overpumping and extraction of groundwater, sinkholes can also form when natural water-drainage patterns are changed and new water-diversion systems are developed. Sinkholes tend to occur in karst landscapes, karst landscapes can have up to thousands of sinkholes within a small area, giving the landscape a pock-marked appearance. These sinkholes drain all the water, so there are only subterranean rivers in these areas, examples of karst landscapes with a plethora of massive sinkholes include Khammouan Mountains and Mamo Plateau. The largest known sinkholes formed in sandstone are Sima Humboldt and Sima Martel in Venezuela, some sinkholes form in thick layers of homogenous limestone. On the contact of limestone and insoluble rock below it, powerful underground rivers may form, in such conditions, the largest known sinkholes of the world have formed, like the 662-metre deep Xiaozhai Tiankeng, giant sótanos in Querétaro and San Luis Potosí states in Mexico and others. The state of Florida in the United States is known for having frequent sinkhole collapses, the Murge area in southern Italy also has numerous sinkholes. Sinkholes can be formed in retention ponds from large amounts of rain, an analysis of a case of sinkhole formation under a retention pond due to a large amount of rain can be seen in a sinkhole collapse study
21.
Limestone
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Limestone is a sedimentary rock, composed mainly of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, forams and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate, about 10% of sedimentary rocks are limestones. The solubility of limestone in water and weak acid solutions leads to karst landscapes, most cave systems are through limestone bedrock. The first geologist to distinguish limestone from dolomite was Belsazar Hacquet in 1778, like most other sedimentary rocks, most limestone is composed of grains. Most grains in limestone are skeletal fragments of organisms such as coral or foraminifera. Other carbonate grains comprising limestones are ooids, peloids, intraclasts and these organisms secrete shells made of aragonite or calcite, and leave these shells behind when they die. Limestone often contains variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or siliceous skeletal fragment, some limestones do not consist of grains at all, and are formed completely by the chemical precipitation of calcite or aragonite, i. e. travertine. Secondary calcite may be deposited by supersaturated meteoric waters and this produces speleothems, such as stalagmites and stalactites. Another form taken by calcite is oolitic limestone, which can be recognized by its granular appearance, the primary source of the calcite in limestone is most commonly marine organisms. Some of these organisms can construct mounds of rock known as reefs, below about 3,000 meters, water pressure and temperature conditions cause the dissolution of calcite to increase nonlinearly, so limestone typically does not form in deeper waters. Limestones may also form in lacustrine and evaporite depositional environments, calcite can be dissolved or precipitated by groundwater, depending on several factors, including the water temperature, pH, and dissolved ion concentrations. Calcite exhibits a characteristic called retrograde solubility, in which it becomes less soluble in water as the temperature increases. Impurities will cause limestones to exhibit different colors, especially with weathered surfaces, Limestone may be crystalline, clastic, granular, or massive, depending on the method of formation. Crystals of calcite, quartz, dolomite or barite may line small cavities in the rock, when conditions are right for precipitation, calcite forms mineral coatings that cement the existing rock grains together, or it can fill fractures. Travertine is a banded, compact variety of limestone formed along streams, particularly there are waterfalls. Calcium carbonate is deposited where evaporation of the leaves a solution supersaturated with the chemical constituents of calcite. Tufa, a porous or cellular variety of travertine, is found near waterfalls, coquina is a poorly consolidated limestone composed of pieces of coral or shells. During regional metamorphism that occurs during the building process, limestone recrystallizes into marble
22.
Caving
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Caving — also traditionally known as spelunking in the United States and Canada and potholing in the United Kingdom and Ireland — is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems. In contrast, speleology is the study of caves and the cave environment. Cave diving is a distinct, and more hazardous, sub-speciality undertaken by a minority of technically proficient cavers. Sometimes categorized as a sport, it is not commonly considered as such by long-time enthusiasts. Many caving skills overlap with those involved in canyoning, mine, Caving is often undertaken for the enjoyment of the outdoor activity or for physical exercise, as well as original exploration, similar to mountaineering or diving. Physical or biological science is also an important goal for some cavers, virgin cave systems comprise some of the last unexplored regions on Earth and much effort is put into trying to locate, enter and survey them. In well-explored regions, the most accessible caves have already been explored, Caving, in certain areas, has also been utilized as a form of eco and adventure tourism. Tour companies have established a leading and guiding tours into. Depending on the type of cave and the type of tour, in many areas, there are tours led through lava tubes by a guiding service. Some however consider the assistance cavers give each other as a team sport activity. Too much emphasis on the labeling of caving as a sport can narrow the goals of caving as a whole, Caving often puts the needs and welfare of a cave before those of the active participants. Clay Perry, an American caver of the 1940s, wrote about a group of men and this group referred to themselves as spelunkers, a term derived from the Latin spēlunca cave, cavern, den, itself from the Greek σπῆλυγξ spēlynks cave. This is regarded as the first use of the word in the Americas, throughout the 1950s, spelunking was the general term used for exploring caves in US English. It was used freely, without any positive or negative connotations, in the 1960s, the terms spelunking and spelunker began to be considered déclassé among experienced enthusiasts. This sentiment is exemplified by bumper stickers and T-shirts displayed by some cavers, Cavers rescue spelunkers, nevertheless, outside the caving community, spelunking and spelunkers predominately remain neutral terms referring to the practice and practitioners, without any respect to skill level. Potholing refers to the act of exploring potholes, a word originating in the north of England for predominantly vertical caves, the base term caving comes from the Latin cavea or caverna, meaning simply, a cave. He developed his own based on ropes and metallic ladders. Martel visited Kentucky and notably Mammoth Cave National Park in October 1912, robert de Joly, Guy de Lavaur and Norbert Casteret were prominent figures of that time, surveying mostly caves in Southwest France
23.
Norbert Casteret
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Norbert Casteret was a famous French caver, adventurer and writer, and is one of the most recognisable names in caving worldwide. Following Édouard-Alfred Martel, Casteret, along with Robert de Joly, Norbert Casteret was born in Saint-Martory in Haute-Garonne on 19 August 1897. His father, Henry Casteret, was a lawyer in Toulouse and his brothers were Roger, who died at the age of four, Jean and Martial Casteret, a physician who accompanied his brother on some of his explorations. An all-round athlete and accomplished mountaineer, Casteret began caving in 1912, unlike de Joly, who made caving his profession, Casteret was more the amateur adventurer. Casteret served in the French infantry for three years during World War I, serving in his brother Jeans regiment, after being demobilized in 1919, he contracted the Spanish flu. He kept the helmet and lamp he used in the trenches for future use in caving, upon his return from the front, at his fathers urging Casteret studied law and became a notarys clerk, a position he quickly abandoned. In 1924, Casteret met his wife, Élisabeth, a doctors daughter who ended her medical education after their marriage the same year. She later accompanied Casteret on many of his explorations, including the expedition to find the source of the Garonne. The couple had five children, Gilberte, Raoul, Maud, Raymonde, Élisabeth died on 6 May 1940 of puerperal fever, a few days after the birth of their youngest child. Casterets motto was the Latin phrase Ad Augusta per Angusta, Casteret died in Toulouse on 20 July 1987, less than a month before his ninetieth birthday. Casterets fame began with a bold free-dive in the Grotte de Montespan in 1923, two of his best-known works, Dix ans sous terre and Au fond des gouffres were combined and translated into English as Ten Years Under the Earth in 1939. My Caves, translated from the French by R. L. G. Irving, was published in London by J. M. Dent & Sons in 1947. Ten Years Under the Earth, Dent,1939, Zephyrus,1975, Cave Books 2nd,1988, ISBN0914264079 Official website Works by or about Norbert Casteret at Internet Archive
24.
River source
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The source or headwaters of a river or stream is the furthest place in that river or stream from its estuary or confluence with another river, as measured along the course of the river. As an example of the definition above, the USGS at times considers the Missouri River as a tributary of the Mississippi River. But it also follows the first definition above in using the combined Missouri - lower Mississippi length figure in lists of lengths of rivers around the world. This definition, from geographer Andrew Johnston of the Smithsonian Institution, is used by the National Geographic Society when pinpointing the source of rivers such as the Amazon or Nile. A definition given by the state of Montana agrees, stating that a source is never a confluence but is in a location that is the farthest, along water miles. Under this definition neither a lake nor a confluence of tributaries can be a river source. Likewise, the source of the Amazon River has been determined this way, when not listing river lengths, however, alternative definitions may be used. In the case of the Missouri River, Lewis and Clark would have had to travel to the east. to reach the source. Sometimes the source of the most remote tributary may be in an area that is more marsh-like, for example, the source of the River Tees is marshland. The furthest stream is often called the headstream. Headwaters are often small streams with cool waters because of shade and they may also be glacial headwaters, waters formed by the melting of glacial ice. Headwater areas are the areas of a watershed, as opposed to the outflow or discharge of a watershed. The river source is often but not always on or quite near the edge of the watershed, for example, the source of the Colorado River is at the Continental Divide separating the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean watersheds of North America. A river is considered a geographic feature, with only one mouth. For an example, note how the Mississippi River and Missouri River sources are officially defined, U. S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System, Mississippi River, Length,2,340 miles, Source, 47°14′22″N 95°12′29″W U. S. For example, The River Thames rises in Gloucestershire, the White Nile rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa. The word source, when applied to lakes rather than rivers or streams, refers to the lakes inflow
25.
United States Geological Survey
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The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its resources. The organization has four science disciplines, concerning biology, geography, geology. The USGS is a research organization with no regulatory responsibility. The USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior, the USGS employs approximately 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. The USGS also has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, the current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is science for a changing world. The agencys previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its anniversary, was Earth Science in the Public Service. Prompted by a report from the National Academy of Sciences, the USGS was created, by a last-minute amendment and it was charged with the classification of the public lands, and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain. This task was driven by the need to inventory the vast lands added to the United States by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the legislation also provided that the Hayden, Powell, and Wheeler surveys be discontinued as of June 30,1879. Clarence King, the first director of USGS, assembled the new organization from disparate regional survey agencies, after a short tenure, King was succeeded in the directors chair by John Wesley Powell. Administratively, it is divided into a Headquarters unit and six Regional Units, Other specific programs include, Earthquake Hazards Program monitors earthquake activity worldwide. The National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines detects the location, the USGS also runs or supports several regional monitoring networks in the United States under the umbrella of the Advanced National Seismic System. The USGS informs authorities, emergency responders, the media, and it also maintains long-term archives of earthquake data for scientific and engineering research. It also conducts and supports research on long-term seismic hazards, USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast. The USGS National Geomagnetism Program monitors the magnetic field at magnetic observatories and distributes magnetometer data in real time, the USGS operates the streamgaging network for the United States, with over 7400 streamgages. Real-time streamflow data are available online, since 1962, the Astrogeology Research Program has been involved in global, lunar, and planetary exploration and mapping. USGS operates a number of related programs, notably the National Streamflow Information Program. USGS Water data is available from their National Water Information System database
26.
National Geographic Society
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The National Geographic Society, headquartered in Washington, D. C. United States, is one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational institutions in the world and its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation, and the study of world culture and history. In partnership with 21st Century Fox, the Society operates the magazine, TV channels, a website that features extra content and worldwide events, the National Geographic Society was founded in 1888 to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge. The Society believes in the power of science, exploration and storytelling to change the world, National Geographic is governed by a board of trustees, whose 21 members include distinguished educators, business executives, former government officials and conservationists. The organization sponsors and funds research and exploration. National Geographic maintains a museum for the public in its Washington and its Education Foundation gives grants to education organizations and individuals to improve geography education. Its Committee for Research and Exploration has awarded more than 11,000 grants for scientific research, National Geographic has retail stores in Washington, D. C. The locations outside of the United States are operated by Worldwide Retail Store S. L and it also publishes other magazines, books, school products, maps, and Web and film products in numerous languages and countries. National Geographics various media properties reach more than 280 million people monthly, the National Geographic Society began as a club for an elite group of academics and wealthy patrons interested in travel. After preparing a constitution and a plan of organization, the National Geographic Society was incorporated two weeks later on January 27, Gardiner Greene Hubbard became its first president and his son-in-law, Alexander Graham Bell, succeeded him in 1897. Bell and Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor devised the successful marketing notion of Society membership, the current National Geographic Society president and CEO is Gary E. Knell. The chairman of the board of trustees is John Fahey, the editor-in-chief of National Geographic magazine is Susan Goldberg. Gilbert Melville Grosvenor, a chairman of the Society board of trustees received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 for his leadership in geography education. In 2004, the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D. C. was one of the first buildings to receive a Green certification from Global Green USA. The National Geographic received the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities in October 2006 in Oviedo, in 2013 the society was investigated for possible violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act relating to their close association with an Egyptian government official responsible for antiquities. This new, for-profit corporation, will own National Geographic and other magazines, as reported by The Guardian, a spokesman for National Geographic in a November 2,2015 e-mail statement, briefly discussed the rationale for the staff reductions as part of the. Process of reorganizing in order to move forward following the closing the National Geographic Partners deal. Additional specifics were provided to Photo District News by M. J. Jacobsen, National Geographic’s SVP of communications, similar to the contents of a formal announcement by the two companies
27.
Smithsonian Institution
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The Smithsonian Institution, established in 1846 for the increase and diffusion of knowledge, is a group of museums and research centers administered by the Government of the United States. Originally organized as the United States National Museum, that ceased to exist as an administrative entity in 1967. Additional facilities are located in Arizona, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York City, Texas, Virginia, more than 200 institutions and museums in 45 states, Puerto Rico, and Panama are Smithsonian Affiliates. The Institutions thirty million annual visitors are admitted without charge and its annual budget is around $1.2 billion with 2/3 coming from annual federal appropriations. Other funding comes from the Institutions endowment, private and corporate contributions, membership dues, and earned retail, concession, Institution publications include Smithsonian and Air & Space magazines. The British scientist James Smithson left most of his wealth to his nephew Henry James Hungerford, Congress officially accepted the legacy bequeathed to the nation, and pledged the faith of the United States to the charitable trust on July 1,1836. The American diplomat Richard Rush was dispatched to England by President Andrew Jackson to collect the bequest, Rush returned in August 1838 with 105 sacks containing 104,960 gold sovereigns. Once the money was in hand, eight years of Congressional haggling ensued over how to interpret Smithsons rather vague mandate for the increase, unfortunately, the money was invested by the US Treasury in bonds issued by the state of Arkansas which soon defaulted. The United States Exploring Expedition by the U. S. Navy circumnavigated the globe between 1838 and 1842, in 1846, the regents developed a plan for weather observation, in 1847, money was appropriated for meteorological research. The Institution became a magnet for young scientists from 1857 to 1866, the Smithsonian played a critical role as the U. S. partner institution in early bilateral scientific exchanges with the Academy of Sciences of Cuba. The Smithsonian Institution Building began construction in 1849, designed by architect James Renwick Jr. its interiors were completed by general contract Gilbert Cameron and the building opened in 1855. The Smithsonians first expansion came with construction of the Arts and Industries Building in 1881, Congress had promised to build a new structure for the museum if the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition generated enough income. It did, and the building was designed by architects Adolf Cluss and Paul Schulze, meigs of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The National Zoological Park opened in 1889 to accommodate the Smithsonians Department of Living Animals and this structure was designed by the D. C. architectural firm of Hornblower & Marshall. More than 40 years would pass before the museum, the Museum of History. It was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White. That same year, the Smithsonian signed an agreement to take over the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum opened in the Old Patent Office Building on October 7,1968. The first new building to open since the National Museum of Natural History was the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
28.
Drainage basin
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A drainage basin or catchment area is any area of land where precipitation collects and drains off into a common outlet, such as into a river, bay, or other body of water. Drainage basins connect into other drainage basins at elevations in a hierarchical pattern, with smaller sub-drainage basins. Other terms used to describe drainage basins are catchment, catchment basin, drainage area, river basin and water basin. In closed drainage basins the water converges to a point inside the basin, known as a sink, which may be a permanent lake. The drainage basin acts as a funnel by collecting all the water within the covered by the basin. Each drainage basin is separated topographically from adjacent basins by a perimeter, drainage basins are similar but not identical to hydrologic units, which are drainage areas delineated so as to nest into a multi-level hierarchical drainage system. Hydrologic units are defined to allow multiple inlets, outlets, or sinks, in a strict sense, all drainage basins are hydrologic units but not all hydrologic units are drainage basins. Drainage basins of the oceans and seas of the world. Grey areas are endorheic basins that do not drain to the oceans, the following is a list of the major ocean basins, About 48. 7% of the worlds land drains to the Atlantic Ocean. The two major mediterranean seas of the world also flow to the Atlantic, The Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico basin includes most of the U. S. The Mediterranean Sea basin includes much of North Africa, east-central Africa, Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe, Turkey, and the areas of Israel, Lebanon. Just over 13% of the land in the world drains to the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Oceans drainage basin also comprises about 13% of Earths land. It drains the eastern coast of Africa, the coasts of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, the Indian subcontinent, Burma, antarctica comprises approximately eight percent of the Earths land. The five largest river basins, from largest to smallest, are the basins of the Amazon, the Río de la Plata, the Congo, the Nile, and the Mississippi. The three rivers that drain the most water, from most to least, are the Amazon, Ganga, endorheic drainage basins are inland basins that do not drain to an ocean. Around 18% of all land drains to endorheic lakes or seas or sinks, the largest of these consists of much of the interior of Asia, which drains into the Caspian Sea, the Aral Sea, and numerous smaller lakes. Some of these, such as the Great Basin, are not single drainage basins but collections of separate, in endorheic bodies of standing water where evaporation is the primary means of water loss, the water is typically more saline than the oceans. An extreme example of this is the Dead Sea, drainage basins have been historically important for determining territorial boundaries, particularly in regions where trade by water has been important
29.
Toulouse
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Toulouse is the capital city of the southwestern French department of Haute-Garonne, as well as of the Occitanie region. The city lies on the banks of the River Garonne,150 kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea,230 km from the Atlantic Ocean and it is the fourth-largest city in France with 466,297 inhabitants in January 2014. The Toulouse Metro area is, with 1312304 inhabitants as of 2014, Frances 4th metropolitan area after Paris, Lyon and Marseille and ahead of Lille and Bordeaux. Toulouse is the centre of the European aerospace industry, with the headquarters of Airbus, the Galileo positioning system, the SPOT satellite system, the Airbus Group, ATR and the Aerospace Valley. The city also hosts the European headquarters of Intel and CNESs Toulouse Space Centre, thales Alenia Space, and Astrium Satellites, Airbus Groups satellite system subsidiary, also have a significant presence in Toulouse. The University of Toulouse is one of the oldest in Europe and, with more than 103,000 students, is the fourth-largest university campus in France, after the Universities of Paris, Lyon and Lille. The air route between Toulouse Blagnac and Paris Orly is the busiest in Europe, transporting 2.4 million passengers in 2014, according to the rankings of LExpress and Challenges, Toulouse is the most dynamic French city. It is now the capital of the Occitanie region, the largest region in metropolitan France, sernin, the largest remaining Romanesque building in Europe, designated in 1998 because of its significance to the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route. Toulouse is in the south of France, north of the department of Haute-Garonne, the city is traversed by the Canal de Brienne, the Canal du Midi and the rivers Garonne, Touch and Hers-Mort. Toulouse has a subtropical climate which can be qualified as submediterranean due to its proximity to the Mediterranean climate zone. The Garonne Valley was a point for trade between the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic since at least the Iron Age. The historical name of the city, Tolosa, it is of unknown meaning or origin, possibly from Aquitanian, or from Iberian, Tolosa enters the historical period in the 2nd century BC, when it became a Roman military outpost. After the conquest of Gaul, it was developed as a Roman city of Gallia Narbonensis. In the 5th century, Tolosa fell to the Visigothic kingdom and became one of its cities, in the early 6th century even serving as its capital. From this time, Toulouse was the capital of Aquitaine within the Frankish realm, in 721, Duke Odo of Aquitaine defeated an invading Umayyad Muslim army at the Battle of Toulouse. Odos victory was an obstacle to Muslim expansion into Christian Europe. Charles Martel, a later, won the Battle of Tours. The Frankish conquest of Septimania followed in the 750s, and a quasi-independent County of Toulouse emerged within the Carolingian sub-kingdom of Aquitaine by the late 8th century
30.
Agen
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The commune of Agen is the prefecture of the Lot-et-Garonne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. It lies on the river Garonne 135 kilometres southeast of Bordeaux, the city of Agen lies in the southern department Lot-et-Garonne in the Aquitaine region. The city centre lies on the east bank of the Garonne river close to the Canal de Garonne, Agen features an oceanic climate, in the Köppen climate classification. Winters are mild and feature cool to cold temperatures while summers are mild, rainfall is spread equally throughout the year, however, most sunshine hours are from March–September. From Occitan Agen, itself from Latin Aginnum, from a Celtic root agin- meaning rock or height, the town has a higher level of unemployment than the national average. Major employers include the pharmaceutical factory UPSA, the old centre of town contains a number of medieval buildings. The Fine Arts museum, Musée des Beaux Arts contains artefacts, furniture, the art gallery contains several hundred works, including several by Goya, and others by Bonnard and Seurat. The collection also contains a number of works by artists who lived locally. The museum is made up of twenty or so rooms, the Canal des Deux Mers, which joins the Mediterranean with the Atlantic, crosses the river Garonne at Agen via the towns famous canal bridge. The municipal theatre Théâtre Ducourneau presents theatre, and occasionally classical concerts, the smaller Théâtre du jour has a resident theatre company presenting a variety of recent or older plays. There are two cinemas, one a commercial multiscreened affair, the other an arts cinema run by a voluntary organization, the latter organizes film festivals every year. Rugby is extremely popular in the town, and the local team, the town also serves as the base for the Team Lot-et-Garonne cycling team. The Gare dAgen connects Agen with Toulouse and Bordeaux as well as Périgueux and it is around an hour from Toulouse and around an hour from Bordeaux. The fast trains to Paris take four hours and ten minutes, Agen is connected, by the A62 autoroute, to both Toulouse and Bordeaux. The Agen Airport is serviced by Airlinair service to Paris Orly 6 days a week and it is also used for business and leisure flying. Agen stands on the voie verte cycle path between the Mediterranean and close to Bordeaux, Agen is the seat of a Roman Catholic diocese that comprises the Département of Lot and Garonne. It is a suffragan of the archdiocese of Bordeaux. S and he was married to a local woman with whom he had two children. Agen is the capital of the prune, a local produce sold as a sweet or as an after-dinner delight, every September, the Prune festival organizes rock concerts, circuses and prune tasting
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Bay of Biscay
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The Bay of Biscay /ˈbɪskeɪ, -ki/ is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Point Penmarch to the Spanish border, the average depth is 1,744 metres and the greatest depth is 4,735 metres. The Bay of Biscay is named after Biscay on the northern Spanish coast, the Bay of Biscay is home to some of the Atlantic Oceans fiercest weather. Large storms occur in the bay, especially during the winter months, up until recent years it was a regular occurrence for merchant vessels to founder in Biscay storms. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Bay of Biscay as a line joining Cap Ortegal to Penmarch Point, the southernmost portion is the Cantabrian Sea. The phenomenon of June Gloom is common, in late spring and early summer a large fog triangle fills the southwestern half of the bay, covering just a few kilometres inland. As winter begins, weather becomes severe and these depressions cause severe weather at sea and bring light though very constant rain to its shores. The Gulf Stream enters the bay following the continental shelfs border anti-clockwise, the main cities on the shores of the Bay of Biscay are Bordeaux, Bayonne, Biarritz, Brest, Nantes, La Rochelle, Donostia-San Sebastián, Bilbao, Santander, Gijón and Avilés. The southern end of the gulf is called in Spanish Mar Cantábrico, from the Estaca de Bares, as far as the mouth of Adour river. It was named by Romans in the 1st century BC as Sinus Cantabrorum and also, on some medieval maps, the Bay of Biscay is marked as El Mar del los Vascos. The Bay of Biscay has been the site of famous naval engagements over the centuries. In 1592 the Spanish defeated an English fleet during the eponymous Battle of the Bay of Biscay, the USS Californian sank here after striking a naval mine on June 22,1918. On December 28,1943, the Battle of the Bay of Biscay was fought between HMS Glasgow and HMS Enterprise and a group of German destroyers as part of Operation Stonewall during World War II. U-667 sank on 25 August 1944 in position 46°00′N 01°30′W, when she struck a mine, often specialist groups take the ferries to hear more information. Volunteers and employees of Biscay Dolphin Research regularly observe and monitor cetacean activity from the bridge of the ships on the P&O Ferries Portsmouth to Bilbao route, many species of whales and dolphins can be seen in this area. Most importantly, it is one of the few places where the beaked whales and this is the best study area in the world for beaked whales. Other records in the late 20th century include one off Galicia at 43°00′N 10°30′W in September 1977 reported by a whaling company and another one seen off the Iberian Peninsula. The best areas to see the larger cetaceans lie in the deep waters beyond the shelf, particularly over the Santander Canyon
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Tarn (river)
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The Tarn is a 381-kilometre long river in southern France, right tributary of the Garonne. Its basin covers approximately 12,000 square kilometres, and it has a flow of approximately 140 cubic metres per second. The Millau Viaduct spans the valley of the River Tarn near Millau, the Millau Viaduct, the tallest bridge in the world, carrying the A75 autoroute across the Tarn Gorge near Millau, opened in December 2004. The Tarn is famous for its brutal floodings, which are the most dangerous in Europe along with the Danube River. The flooding of March 1930 saw the Tarn rise more than 17 metres above its level in Montauban in just 24 hours. The Tarn was once navigable from its junction with the Garonne to Corbarieu and this stretch of river included seven river locks over a distance of 38 kilometres. The canal was linked to the Canal de Garonne in Moissac by a branch lock upstream of the first river lock, the two access points from the Canal de Garonne have both been restored, and boats can again access the immediate reaches of the river at these points. The remaining six river locks are disused and unnavigable, gorges du Tarn Tourism in Tarn http, //www. geoportail. fr The Tarn at the Sandre database French Waterways - River Tarn Navigation guide to the lower 40 km. http, //www. gorgesdutarn. net/. lang=en
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Lot (river)
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The Lot, pronounced, originally the Olt, is a river in France. It is a tributary of the Garonne. It rises in the Cévennes, flowing west through Quercy, where it flows into the Garonne near Aiguillon and it gives its name to the departments of Lot and Lot-et-Garonne. The Lot is prone to flooding in the winter and spring, Olt is also the name of a river in Romania. A reliable route was not provided until the 17th century when Jean-Baptiste Colbert ordered new works, by 1776, the river had 12 locks. New construction was begun in 1835 for some 297 kilometres and 76 locks, four tunnels were included at this time with lengths from 139 to 364 metres. Railway competition caused the abandonment of Lot navigation in 1926, over the next 60 years, there were no repairs or maintenance of the canal. Repairs in the Lower Lot began in the end of the 1990s and this portion of the Lot is a 71. 5-kilometre route, with 7 locks, from Nicole to Lustrac. The lower Lot is open to traffic and is being extended upstream with the objective of some day being connected to the upper Lot and it was reopened to boats in May 1990
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Dordogne (river)
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The Dordogne is a river in south-central and southwest France. The Dordogne and its watershed were designated Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO on July 112012, contrary to appearances, the name of the Dordogne is not a recent word resulting from the frequent names of the Dore and the Dogne. It comes from an ancient Durānius, derived from a Pre-Celtic root dur-, dor-, the medieval forms adopted a redoubled suffix -ononia, Dorononia fluvius, Dornonia that evolves in Dordonia by a phenomenon of dissimilation, giving the impression of an etymology *Dore-Dogne. The Dordogne is one of the few rivers in the world that exhibit the phenomenon of a tidal bore, the upper valley of the Dordogne is a series of deep gorges. The cliffs, steep banks, fast flowing water and high bridges attract both walkers and drivers, in several places the river is dammed to form long, deep lakes. Camp sites and holiday homes have proliferated wherever the valley floor is wide enough to accommodate them, below Argentat and around Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, the valley widens to accommodate fertile farmland, well-watered pasture and orchards. In the towns, which are major tourist attractions because of their history and architecture, in Périgord, the valley widens further to encompass one of Frances main gastronomic regions, with vineyards, poultry farms and truffle-rich woodlands. The main season for tourism in the Valley of the Dordogne is from June to September, with July, the lifestyle and culture of the Dordogne valley attract both visitors and incomers from all over France, but also from many other countries, particularly Britain and Germany. The Dordogne at the Sandre database The Dordogne Valley in the Lot department The Dordogne Valley UNESCO Biosphere Reserve
35.
Save (Garonne)
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The Save is a 143 km long river in southern France, left tributary of the Garonne. Its source is in the foothills of the Pyrenees, south of Lannemezan. It flows north-east through the following départements and cities, Hautes-Pyrénées and it flows into the Garonne in Grenade, north of Toulouse. Among its tributaries is the Gesse, http, //www. geoportail. fr The Save at the Sandre database
36.
Gers (river)
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The Gers is a 178-kilometre long river in southern France, left tributary of the Garonne. Its source is in the foothills of the Pyrenees, near Lannemezan and it flows north through the départements Hautes-Pyrénées, Gers and Lot-et-Garonne. It flows into the Garonne in Layrac, near Agen, the city Auch lies along the river Gers. It gives its name to the Gers département, the name of the Gers appears in the sixth century as Ægirtius, de Egircio flumine and Gircius. It is known as in flumine Gersio in 817 and as Iercius in the 13th century. geoportail. fr The Gers at the Sandre database
37.
Tidal bore
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Bores occur in relatively few locations worldwide, usually in areas with a large tidal range and where incoming tides are funneled into a shallow, narrowing river or lake via a broad bay. The funnel-like shape not only increases the range, but it can also decrease the duration of the flood tide. A tidal bore takes place during the tide and never during the ebb tide. Large bores can be unsafe for shipping but also present opportunities for river surfing. Two key features of a tidal bore are the intense turbulence and turbulent mixing generated during the bore propagation, the visual observations of tidal bores highlight the turbulent nature of the surging waters. The tidal bore induces a strong turbulent mixing in the zone. The velocity observations indicate a deceleration of the flow associated with the passage of the bore as well as large velocity fluctuations. The bore rumble is heard far away because its low frequencies can travel long distances. The word bore derives through Old English from the Old Norse word bára, the tidal bores may be dangerous and many bores have had a sinister reputation, the River Seine, the Petitcodiac River, and the Colorado River, to name a few. In China, despite warning signs erected along the banks of the Qiantang River, the tidal bores affect the shipping and navigation in the estuarine zone, for example, in Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, and India. On the other hand, tidal bore-affected estuaries are rich feeding zones, the tidal bores also provide opportunity for recreational inland surfing. Scientific studies have been carried out at the River Dee in the United Kingdom, the Garonne and Sélune rivers in France, and the Daly River in Australia. The force of the tidal flow often poses a challenge to scientific measurements, as evidenced by a number of field work incidents in the River Dee, Rio Mearim, Daly River. Rivers and bays that have known to exhibit bores include those listed below. The tidal bore is known as benak. Bono, Kampar River, at Meranti Bay, Pelalawan, Indonesia, the phenomenon is feared by the locals to sink ships. It is reported to break up to 130 kilometers inland, the second highest tidal bore after the Severn bore, up to 1.7 meters high. The bore tends to form around the Manchester Ship Canal, the Severn bore on the River Severn, Wales and England, up to 2 meters high The Trent Aegir on the River Trent, England, up to 1.5 meters high
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Cadillac, Gironde
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Cadillac is a commune in the Gironde department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. Cadillac is directly across the Garonne river from Sauternes, and is known for producing sweet dessert wines under the Cadillac AOC designation, Cadillac was founded in 1280 to serve as a river port for the castle of Benauges by the lord of the castle, Jean I de Grailly. Cadillac is the home of the imposing Château des Ducs dÉpernon, the name of the commune was adopted by Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, the founder of Detroit and Governor of Louisiana, on his arrival to what is now the United States. The Cadillac division of General Motors, and Cadillac, Michigan are named after him, french wine Communes of the Gironde department INSEE
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Haute-Garonne
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Haute-Garonne is a department in the southwest of France named after the Garonne river. Its main city and capital is Toulouse, Haute-Garonne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from part of the province of Languedoc. The reduction in its area resulted from a decree dated 21 November 1808. The new department, created in response to the pleadings of various locally powerful politicians, the districts lost to Tarn-et-Garonne in 1808 were those of Montech and Castelsarrasin. Haute-Garonne is part of the current region of Occitanie and is surrounded by the departments of Hautes-Pyrénées, Gers, Tarn-et-Garonne, Tarn, Aude and it also borders Spain in the south. The department is crossed by the course of the Garonne River for nearly 200 kilometers. The borders of the department follow the river, the Garonne enters France from Spain at the town of Fos, and goes through Toulouse and leaves the department. The extreme south of the department lies in the Pyrenees mountain range and is very mountainous, the highest elevation is the Peak of Perdiguère, at 3,222 meters above sea level. This department was the base of former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. The President of the General Council is Pierre Izard of the Socialist Party, the inhabitants of the department are called Haut-Garonnais. The greatest population concentration is around Toulouse, the south of the department is quite sparsely populated. More than a million people inhabited the department at the last census in 1999, young people are well represented with 55% of the population under the age of 40 and of those, 16% are between the ages of 20 and 29. This is because Toulouse is a university town, the largest towns are, The department has four ski resorts
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Saint-Gaudens, Haute-Garonne
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Saint-Gaudens is a commune and a sub-prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern France. Saint-Gaudens lies at an altitude of 405 m on a ledge overlooking the valley of the Garonne and it faces the Pyrenees and is a natural crossroads for routes between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and between Toulouse and the Val dAran in Catalonia. The town later developed around the 11th century Romanesque church and it was granted its city charter in 1202 and became the capital of the Nébouzan area, protected by solid ramparts. As an important regional marketplace, Saint-Gaudens became the capital of the Comminges. The town was damaged by Protestant forces under Montgomery in 1569, the name was changed briefly to Mont-Unité during the Revolution and the area later became part of the Haute-Garonne départment. The Collegiate Church of St. Peter and St. Gaudens, with its cloister and chapter house and it was home to a college of canons ordinary, a community founded by Bishop Bertrand. The 11th century romanesque church, built on the typical Pyrenean plan as a basilica with a nave and it was extended in the 12th and 13th centuries with the construction of the cloister and chapter house. The lateral north door was added in the 16th century, several tall buildings are reminders of the citys mediaeval period, with plain façades to which balconies were added at the end of the 19th century. Other buildings, including some houses, date back to the 18th century. Some buildings have façades with pediments, friezes and cornices, mouldings, on Boulevard Bepmale, the façades that face the Sun, with a view of the Pyrenees, have balconies and galleries up to their very top floors. St Gaudens has a Rugby League team playing in the French Championship, St Gaudens also hosts a popular rugby union team SSGL. The Open International Féminin Midi-Pyrénées Saint-Gaudens Comminges, an ITF Womens Circuit tennis tournament, is held in Saint-Gaudens, the 2014 Tour de France cycle race began stage 17 in Saint Gaudens, with a 124.5 kilometres route to Saint-Lary. Grand Prix du Comminges Sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens Communes of the Haute-Garonne department INSEE Official website Saint-Gaudens Tourist Office website
41.
Muret
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Muret is a commune in the Haute-Garonne department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the Occitanie region of southwestern France. It is an suburb of the city of Toulouse, even though it does not belong to Greater Toulouse. It lies southwest of Toulouse and is the largest component of the intercommunality of Muretain, Muret is generally known for the Battle of Muret and as the birthplace of Clément Ader, inventor and aviation pioneer. It is also the birthplace of the Niel family from which Adolphe Niel, Marshal of France, a floral town located in the urban area of Toulouse and the Toulouse urban unit,22 kilometres south of Toulouse. It is equidistant from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, on the Garonne Toulouse plain, the commune is established on the first terrace of the Garonne on its left bank. Its right bank is overhung by a slope which deeply cut the molasse of the Tertiary era. It has an area of 5,784 hectares and an altitude ranging from 152 to 305 metres, by road, By the Route Nationale 117 and the A64 autoroute, exits 35,34,33. By rail, By the SNCF, Gare de Muret TER Midi-Pyrénées on the Toulouse - Bayonne line, by bus, By the Arc-en-ciel de Haute-Garonne network, Toulouse transit network Tisséo and the TAMtam network. Several Tisséo bus routes connect the commune to the Toulouse Metro,117 bus route from Potier-Oncopole to Muret railway station. By air, Muret is 26 kilometres from Toulouse–Blagnac Airport, as well as 5 kilometres from the Muret – Lherm Aerodrome, Muret is located on the Garonne river at its confluence with the Louge, which flows northeast through the commune. The Garonne flows north through the commune and forms part of its northern border, the Ousseau tributary of the Touch is also in the commune, and the Canal de Saint-Martory. Muret has a temperate climate, with Mediterranean and continental influences, characterised by a hot, dry summer, mild winter. The prevailing winds are, in order of importance, the west wind, the southeast wind and the north, Muret has averaged 24 days of extreme heat and 33 days of frost per year. The rainiest months are April, May and June, the normal minimum temperatures occur in January with average 5 °C, and the maximum normal temperatures in August with 23 °C. Different objects in the Chalcolithic, around 3,000 to 2,500 BC, a series of Gallo-Roman brick kilns dating back to the 1st century AD is located along the right bank of the Garonne. A villa occupied the site of the current town centre, surrounded by protective walls it was given the name of Murellum, which became Murel, and then Muret in the Middle Ages. On 12 September 1213 the Battle of Muret took place between Simon de Montfort and a force under the control of Count Raymond of Toulouse. That day, the changed the horizons of both sides of the Pyreneean border and saw the fate of Occitania decided
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