The Aa (; pcd, Abbe) is a river in northern

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

that is 93 km (58 miles) long. Originating near the village of Bourthes and emptying into the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

near

Gravelines Gravelines (, ; ; ) is a commune in the Nord department in Northern France. It lies at the mouth of the river Aa southwest of Dunkirk. It was formed in the 12th century around the mouth of a canal built to connect Saint-Omer with the sea. As ...

, the Aa is located near the north-eastern limit of the

English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...

. The Aa has been canalized for most of its length and forms much of the border between the regions of Pas-de-Calais and Nord.

Hydronymy

The word "Aa" in

Old Dutch In linguistics, Old Dutch (Dutch: Oudnederlands) or Old Low Franconian (Dutch: Oudnederfrankisch) is the set of Franconian dialects (i.e. dialects that evolved from Frankish) spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages, from aroun ...

means "water" (it still retains the name in modern Dutch and local

West Flemish West Flemish (''West-Vlams'' or ''West-Vloams'' or ''Vlaemsch'' (in French-Flanders), nl, West-Vlaams, french: link=no, flamand occidental) is a collection of Dutch dialects spoken in western Belgium and the neighbouring areas of France and ...

), and can be traced via

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic bran ...

back to its original

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

form. The river is very well-known to

crossword A crossword is a word puzzle that usually takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white- and black-shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the ans ...

enthusiasts ("the first river in France"). The river is known in

Modern Latin New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy a ...

as ''Agnio'', but has been recorded in many forms in

Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functione ...

, starting with ''Agnona'' in 648 AD. In local Picard dialects, the Aa is traditionally called the ''Abbe''.

Geography

The river's geography is divided into two parts. The first segment ranges from the river's source is in the Artois HillsDubois, Claude, ed. (1960). "Aa" a ''Grand Larousse Encyclopédique'' (in French). I: A-Bauer (First ed.). Paris, France: Librairie Larousse. p. 3. to

Saint-Omer Saint-Omer (; vls, Sint-Omaars) is a commune and sub-prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais department in France. It is west-northwest of Lille on the railway to Calais, and is located in the Artois province. The town is named after Saint Audoma ...

to form a small

chalk stream Chalk streams are rivers that rise from springs in landscapes with chalk bedrock. Since chalk is permeable, water percolates easily through the ground to the water table and chalk streams therefore receive little surface runoff. As a result, th ...

, similar to the Somme. This section of the river drains the Artois plateau and is long. The river's second part spans from Saint-Omer to its mouth, a distance of approximately . As a navigable waterway, this section connects the Canal de Calais to Calais and the Canal de Bourbourg leading to Dunkirk. The section of the river from Saint-Omer to the junction with the main Dunkirk-Scheldt waterway and the Canal de Neuffossé are not currently navigable. Aa and connecting waterways

History

Its name originates from the Old High German word ''aha'', which means water. The word also shares roots with the Latin word ''aqua''. Saint-Omer formerly lay at the head of its

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

while seaward, Calais lay on its western margin and

Bergues Bergues (; nl, Sint-Winoksbergen; vls, Bergn) is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. It is situated to the south of Dunkirk and from the Belgian border. Locally it is referred to as "the other Bruges in Flanders". Bergues ...

, now inland from Dunkirk, on its eastern one. By the time of the

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

settlements on this coast, Dunkirk was developing on the dunes, offshore across the estuarine marsh from Bergues.

was the port at the seaward end of the river after the area of the estuary was reclaimed. The dates of these events are imprecise but the modern pattern was firmly established by 1588, the time of the Spanish Armada when an approximation to the modern course of the lowland river formed the boundary between the

Spanish Netherlands Spanish Netherlands (Spanish: Países Bajos Españoles; Dutch: Spaanse Nederlanden; French: Pays-Bas espagnols; German: Spanische Niederlande.) (historically in Spanish: ''Flandes'', the name "Flanders" was used as a ''pars pro toto'') was the H ...

and

. The river suffers significant problems from industrial discharge and siltation, which made the length of the Aa from Saint-Omer to the junction with the Dunkirk-Escaut waterway unnavigable since the 1970s.

References

External links

Aa river guide
- Navigation on the canal, including

as an entry port into the French waterways network. {{Authority control Rivers of France Rivers of the Pas-de-Calais Rivers of Nord (French department) Rivers of Hauts-de-France 0Aa