Canal du Midi

From Free net encyclopedia

The Canal du Midi is a canal of great historic importance and remarkable beauty in the south (le midi) of France. The Canal connects the Garonne River to the Mediterranean. To do so, the Canal is 240 km in length and runs from the city of Toulouse down to the Mediterranean port of Sète (which was founded to serve as the eastern terminus of the Canal.)

1 History
2 Characteristics of the Canal
3 World Heritage Site
4 See also
5 External links

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History

The original purpose of the Canal du Midi was to be a shortcut between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, avoiding the long sea voyage around hostile Spain, Barbary pirates, and a trip that in the 17th century required a full month of sailing.

Image:Castelnaudary canal midi.jpg

The Canal du Midi was opened officially as the Canal Royal de Languedoc on May 24, 1681. It was built under the supervision of Pierre-Paul Riquet, a rich tax-farmer who bankrupted himself in the personal undertaking and died destitute in 1680, just months before the Canal was opened to navigation. Riquet was not alone in the undertaking: 12,000 workers toiled for fifteen years to create the Canal.

Image:BarqueCanalDuMidi.jpg Image:Xvolks canal du midi 01.jpg

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Characteristics of the Canal

The Canal has 103 locks which serve to climb and descend a total of 190 meters. The Canal has 328 structures, including not only the locks but also bridges, dams and a tunnel.

At the town of Béziers the Canal crosses over the river Orb. To accomplish this feat, a pont-canal (bridge canal) was built.

The design of the Canal included the first canal passage ever built through a tunnel. The Canal du Midi passes through a passage 173 meters long under a hill at Enserune.

The Canal also involved building the first artificial reservoir for feeding a canal waterway — a massive dam, 700 meters long, 30 meters above the riverbed and 120 meters thick at its base, which was built by the labor of hundreds of local women carrying soil in baskets.

The construction of the Canal du Midi was considered by people in the 17th century as the biggest project of the day. Even today it is seen as a marvellous engineering accomplishment.

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World Heritage Site

The Canal du Midi is part of the waterway called the Canal des Deux Mers (the Canal of the Two Seas) running between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean that has been on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites since 1996. (The other part of the Canal des Deux Mers is the Canal Latéral à la Garonne (the Lateral Canal to the Garonne River).

Today the Canal du Midi attracts a fifth of all river tourism in France, more than the Seine. People who boat on the Canal du Midi come not only from France, but also from Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Britain, and many other countries including the United States and Canada.

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