Creuse

From Free net encyclopedia

For other uses, see Creuse (disambiguation).

Creuse is a département in central France named after the Creuse River.

1 History
2 Geography
3 Demographics
4 Tourism
5 See also
6 External links

History

Creuse was one of the original 83 départements created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from the former province of la Marche.

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Geography

Creuse is part of the current region of Limousin and is surrounded by the départements of Corrèze, Haute-Vienne, Allier, Puy-de-Dôme, Cher, and Indre.

It is located in the Massif Central and is permeated by the Creuse River and its tributaries. The river is dammed at several locations both for water supply and hydroelectricity generation. Typically for an inland area of continental Europe, Creuse has relatively cold winters with some snow-fall into April but also hot summers although rain-fall occurs throughout the year because of the relatively high elevation of the land. The topography is principally rolling hills intersected by often steep river valleys. The terrestrial ecology is typically cool temperate with a species mix that would not be uncommon in the western UK with oak, ash, chestnut , hazel and Prunus species dominating the woodlands. There are no commercial vineyards and much of the farming is beef cattle (Charolais and Limousin) and also sheep.

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Demographics

The inhabitants of the département are called Creusois. Over the past two generations Creuse has experienced the greatest population decline of any French département, from 164,000 in 1960 to 124,000 in 1999 - a fall of 24%.

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