The Camargue (, also , , ; ) is a coastal region in southern France located south of the city of

Arles Arles ( , , ; ; Classical ) is a coastal city and Communes of France, commune in the South of France, a Subprefectures in France, subprefecture in the Bouches-du-Rhône Departments of France, department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Reg ...

, between the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

and the two arms of the

Rhône The Rhône ( , ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Ròse''; Franco-Provençal, Arpitan: ''Rôno'') is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and Southeastern France before dischargi ...

river delta A river delta is a landform, archetypically triangular, created by the deposition of the sediments that are carried by the waters of a river, where the river merges with a body of slow-moving water or with a body of stagnant water. The creat ...

. The eastern arm is called the Grand Rhône; the western is the ''Petit Rhône''. Administratively, it lies within the department of

Bouches-du-Rhône Bouches-du-Rhône ( ; , ; ; "the Mouths of the Rhône") is a Departments of France, department in southern France. It borders Vaucluse to the north, Gard to the west and Var (department), Var to the east. The Mediterranean Sea lies to the sout ...

(‘Mouths of the Rhône’); it spans portions of the communes of Arles,

Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (, alternatively with the definite article Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, "(the) Saint Marys of the Sea", locally Les Saintes, ; Provençal: ''Lei Santei Marias de la Mar'' or ''Li Sànti Marìo de la Mar'' ), is the c ...

and Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône. A further expanse of marshy plain, known as the "Petite Camargue" (Little Camargue), just to the west of the "Petit Rhône", lies within the department of

Gard Gard () is a department in Southern France, located in the region of Occitanie. It had a population of 748,437 as of 2019;Ramsar site A Ramsar site is a wetland site designated to be of international importance under the Ramsar Convention,8 ha (O) *** Permanent 8 ha (P) *** Seasonal Intermittent < 8 ha(Ts) **

Wetland A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

of International Importance" on 1 December 1986. The Petite Camargue received this designation on 8 January 1996.

Geography

With an area of over , the Camargue is one of western Europe's largest river deltas.Blondel J., 2019. La Camargue, un delta d'exception. In J. Blondel, G. Barruol & R. Vianet, eds: L'encyclopédie de la Camargue, Buchet Chastel, Publisher. ISBN: 978-2-283-03322-7 It is a vast plain comprising large

brine Brine (or briny water) is a high-concentration solution of salt (typically sodium chloride or calcium chloride) in water. In diverse contexts, ''brine'' may refer to the salt solutions ranging from about 3.5% (a typical concentration of seawat ...

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') an ...

s or ''étangs'', cut off from the sea by sandbars and encircled by reed-covered marshes. These are in turn surrounded by a large cultivated area. Approximately a third of the Camargue is either lakes or marshland. The central area around the shoreline of the

Étang de Vaccarès Étang de Vaccarès is a lake, or, more accurately, a salt water lagoon (), in the wetlands of the Camargue in the delta of the River Rhône in southern France. Description The lake has an area of 65 km2, and the depth is less than two m ...

has been protected as a

regional park A regional park is an area of land preserved on account of its natural beauty, historic interest, recreational use or other reason, and under the administration of a form of local government. Definition A regional park can be a special park distr ...

since 1927, in recognition of its great importance as a haven for wild birds. In 2008, it was incorporated into the larger Parc naturel régional de Camargue. File:P9230095 Saintes Sylvereal pont Rhone reduct.jpg, Former Sylvéréal bridge (2007) upon ''le petit Rhône''. File:Etang de vaccares.jpg, Shoreline of the

Flora and fauna

The Camargue is home to more than 400 species of birds and has been identified as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

. Its brine ponds provide one of the few European habitats for the

greater flamingo The greater flamingo (''Phoenicopterus roseus'') is the most widespread and largest species of the flamingo family. Common in the Old World, they are found in Northern (coastal) and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian Subcontinent (south of the Him ...

. The marshes are also a prime habitat for many species of insects, notably (and notoriously) some of the most ferocious

mosquito Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a Family (biology), family of small Diptera, flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word ''mosquito'' (formed by ''Musca (fly), mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish and Portuguese for ''little fly''. Mos ...

s to be found anywhere in France. Camargue horses (Camarguais) roam the extensive marshlands, along with Camargue cattle. The native flora of the Camargue have adapted to the saline conditions.

Sea lavender ''Limonium'' is a genus of about 600 flowering plant species. Members are also known as sea-lavender, statice, caspia or marsh-rosemary. Despite their common names, species are not related to the lavenders or to rosemary. They are instead in Plu ...

and glasswort flourish, along with

tamarisk The genus ''Tamarix'' (tamarisk, salt cedar, taray) is composed of about 50–60 species of flowering plants in the family Tamaricaceae, native to drier areas of Eurasia and Africa. The generic name originated in Latin and may refer to the Tamb ...

s and reeds.

Regional park

Officially established as a regional park and nature reserve in 1970, the Parc naturel régional de Camargue covers . This territory is some of the most natural and most protected in all of Europe. A roadside museum provides background on flora, fauna, as well as the history of the area.

Human influence

Humans have lived in the Camargue for millennia, greatly affecting it with drainage schemes, dykes,

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

paddies and salt pans. Much of the outer Camargue has been drained for agricultural purposes. The Camargue has an eponymous horse breed, the white Camarguais. Camargue horses are ridden by the ''

gardian A is a mounted cattle herdsman in the Camargue delta in Provence, southern France. The work is akin to that of the Mexican , the North American cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditiona ...

s'' (cowboys), who rear the region's cattle for fighting bulls for regional use and for export to Spain, as well as sheep. Many of these animals are raised in

semi-feral A semi-feral animal lives predominantly in a feral state but has some contact and experience with humans. This may be because it was born in a domesticated state and then reverted to life in wild conditions, or it may be an animal that grew up i ...

conditions, allowed to roam through the Camargue within a manade, or free-running herd. They are periodically rounded up for culling, medical treatment, or other events. Gardian house

Few towns of any size have developed in the Camargue. Arles has been called its "capital", located at the extreme north of the delta where the Rhône forks into its two principal branches. The only other towns of note are along the seafront or near it:

, which has also been dubbed its "capital", about to the southwest. The medieval fortress-town of

Aigues-Mortes Aigues-Mortes (; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Gard Departments of France, department in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region of southern France. The medieval Ramparts of Aigues-Mortes, city walls surrounding th ...

is located on the far western edge, in the Petite Camargue. Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer is the destination of the annual Romani pilgrimage for the veneration of Saint Sarah. The Camargue was exploited in the Middle Ages by

Cistercian The Cistercians (), officially the Order of Cistercians (, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as the contri ...

and

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

monks. In the 16th–17th centuries, big estates, known locally as '' mas'', were founded by rich landlords from

. At the end of the 18th century, they had the Rhône diked to protect the town and their properties from flooding. In 1858, the building of the ''digue à la mer'' (dyke to the sea) achieved temporary protection of the delta from erosion, but it is a changing landform, always affected by waters and weather. The north of the Camargue is agricultural land. The main crops are cereals, grapes and rice. Near the seashore, prehistoric man started extracting salt, a practice that continues today. Salt was a source of wealth for the Cistercian "salt abbeys" of Ulmet, Franquevaux and Psalmody in the Middle Ages. Industrial salt collection started in the 19th century, and big chemical companies such as

Pechiney Pechiney SA was a major aluminium conglomerate based in France. The company was acquired in 2003 by the Alcan Corporation, headquartered in Canada. In 2007, Alcan itself was taken over by mining giant Rio Tinto Alcan. Prior to its acquisitio ...

and Solvay founded the "mining" city of Salin-de-Giraud. The boundaries of the Camargue are constantly altered by the Rhône as it transports huge quantities of mud downstream – as much as 20 million m³ annually. Some of the ''étangs'' are the remnants of old arms and legs of the river. The general trend is for the coastline to move outwards as new earth is deposited in the delta at the river's mouth.

, originally built as a port on the coast, is now some inland. The pace of change has been modified in recent years by man-made barriers, such as

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, aqua ...

s on the Rhône and sea dykes, but flooding remains a problem across the region.

References

External links

* or the "Camargue Nation" {{Authority control Landforms of Bouches-du-Rhône Arles Marshes of France Ramsar sites in Metropolitan France Biosphere reserves of France River deltas of Europe Birdwatching sites in France Important Bird Areas of France Natural regions of France Landforms of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur