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Saône-et-Loire
Coat of arms of the Saône-et-Loire department
Location
Location of Saône-et-Loire in France
Administration
Department number: 71
Region: Bourgogne
Prefecture: Mâcon
Subprefectures: Autun
Chalon-sur-Saône
Charolles
Louhans
Arrondissements: 5
Cantons: 57
Communes: 573
President of the General Council: Christophe Sirugue
Statistics
Population Ranked 42nd
 -1999 544,893
Population density: 64/km²
Land area¹: 8575 km²
¹ French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km².
France

Saône-et-Loire (Sona-et-Lêre in Arpitan language) is a French department, named after the Saône and the Loire rivers between which it lies.

History[]

When it was formed during the French Revolution, as of March 4, 1790 in fulfillment of the law of December 22 1789, the new department combined parts of the provinces of southern Burgundy and Bresse, uniting lands that had no previous common history nor political unity and which have no true geographical unity. Thus its history is that of Burgundy, and is especially to be found in the local histories of Autun, Mâcon, Chalon-sur-Saône, Charolles and Louhans.

Geography[]

Saône-et-Loire is the seventh largest department of France and the most densely populated in the region of Bourgogne. In the west the department is composed of the hills of the Autunois, the region around Autun, of the Charollais and of the Mâconnais. In the center it is traversed from north to south by the Saône in its wide plain; the Saône is a tributary of the River Rhône that joins it at Lyon and thus is connected to the Mediterranean Sea. The Loire makes its way in the opposite direction, draining into the Atlantic Ocean. A canal (canal du centre) links the Saône to the Loire between Chalon-sur-Saône and Digoin, thereby linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic ocean. In the east the department occupies the northern part of the plain of Bresse. In the west its industrial heart is in Le Creusot and Montceau-les-Mines.


See also[]

External links[]


This page uses content from the English language Wikipedia. The original content was at Saône-et-Loire. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with this Familypedia wiki, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons License.
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