Narbonne is a commune in southern France in the Occitanie region. It lies 849 km (528 mi) from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is a sub-prefecture. It is located about 15 km (9 mi) from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and was historically a prosperous port, but declined from the 14th century following a change in the course of the river Aude. It is marginally the largest commune in Aude, although it is not the capital of the Aude department, which is the smaller commune of Carcassonne.
The Canal du Midi is a 240 km (150 mi) long canal in Southern France. Originally named the Canal royal en Languedoc and renamed by French revolutionaries to Canal du Midi in 1789, the canal is considered one of the greatest construction works of the 17th century.
Pierre-Paul Riquet, Baron de Bonrepos was the engineer and canal-builder responsible for the construction of the Canal du Midi.
The Briare Canal is one of the oldest canals in France. Its construction started in 1604. It was the first summit level canal in Europe that was built using pound locks, connecting the Rhone-Saône and Seine valleys. It is 57 kilometres long and is part of the Bourbonnais route from Saint-Mammès on the Seine to Chalon-sur-Saône on the Saône.
Saint Ferréol may refer to:
The Canal des Deux Mers has been used to describe two different but similar things since the 1660s. In some cases, it is used interchangeably with the Canal du Midi. In others, it describes the path from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, of which the Canal du Midi was the first man-made component.
Argens-Minervois is a commune in the Aude department in the Occitanie region of southern France.
The Grand Bassin is the largest body of open water along the Canal du Midi. It is in Castelnaudary, France and covers some 7 hectares. Once a scene of intense economic activity, it is now a major pleasure port used by tourist craft. It holds the water reserve for the four locks of Saint-Roche.
There are 91 working locks on the Canal du Midi along its 240-kilometre (150 mi) course from the Bassin du Thau on the Mediterranean coast to the junction with the Canal lateral a la Garonne in Toulouse. There are a further 13 locks on the 37-kilometre (23 mi) La Nouvelle branch which runs through Narbonne to the Mediterranean at Port-la-Nouvelle. The locks are all under the management of the French navigation authority, Voies navigables de France.
The La Nouvelle branch is a 37.3-kilometre (23.2 mi) branch of the Canal du Midi in Aude, southern France which runs from the Canal du Midi through Narbonne and on to the Mediterranean. It is made up of three waterways: the first 5.1 kilometres (3.2 mi) is the Canal de Jonction from the Canal du Midi to the Aude, the second section is 800 metres (2,625 ft) of the Aude itself and the third is the 31.6 kilometres (19.6 mi) Canal de la Robine which enters the Mediterranean at Port-la-Nouvelle. The La Nouvelle branch is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the Canal du Midi and is managed by the French navigation authority, Voies navigables de France.
The Bassin de Saint-Ferréol was created as the result of a large earth dam across the mouth of the valley of Laudot stream at St. Ferréol in the Montagne Noire. It was originally proposed by Chevalier de Clerville and accepted by Pierre Paul Riquet as an integral part of the Canal du Midi. Riquet needed to provide a sufficient water reservoir to allow the locks to function year round, even in the dry summer season. The dam was begun on 15 April 1667 and was completed in four years. It was the first dam built specifically to supply water to a navigable canal and was by far the greatest single work of civil engineering undertaken during the building of the Canal du Midi.
The Seuil de Naurouze, or Col de Naurouze, is the highest point of the Canal du Midi in southern France. It is the watershed point identified by Pierre-Paul Riquet when he designed and built the canal. Water falling on the western side of this point flows to the Atlantic Ocean and on the eastern side to the Mediterranean Sea. It is on the border of the department of Haute-Garonne and the department of the Aude.
The Bassin de Naurouze is an octagonal holding tank, created during the building of the Canal du Midi as designed and built by Pierre-Paul Riquet. It was abandoned a few years after construction of the canal because of its recurrent silting problems. The flow of water from the Bassin de Saint-Ferréol joins the Canal du Midi at this point near the Seuil de Naurouze. Riquet hoped to build a city around the basin and also considered building a port. However, it easily filled with silt and its use discontinued. A lawn replaced the empty pool, and it is crossed by a straight path lined with plane trees.
Cesse Aqueduct is one of several aqueducts, or water bridge, created for the Canal du Midi. Originally, the canal crossed the Cesse on the level. Pierre-Paul Riquet, the original architect of the canal, had placed a curved dam 205 metres (673 ft) long and 9.10 metres (29.9 ft) high across the Cesse in order to collect water to make the crossing possible; the aqueduct replaced this dam.
Louis Nicolas de Clerville, a.k.a. Chevalier de Clerville, held many military positions during his life in France in 1610–1677. He was associated with Pierre-Paul Riquet and the building of the Canal du Midi.
The rigole de la montagne was an important facet of the Canal du Midi, engineered by Pierre-Paul Riquet in southern France. The canal itself was built during 1666-1681. A critical aspect of the Canal du Midi was the supply of sufficient water to feed the canal. Each boat traversing its length would require a large quantity of water in the locks in order to climb or descend.
The critical feature of the Canal du Midi was to provide sufficient water to ensure that the lock system continued to function, even through the summer months. The first part of this endeavor was the rigole de la plaine. It carried water from the Sor River, at Pontcrouzet, to the Bassin de Naurouze, where the water was to enter the canal. This was done in 1667.
The balancing of incoming and outgoing water allows the Canal du Midi to operate as it does. Each time a lock operates, large quantities of water are either required to fill it or dump from it into the lower level pound. There must be a constant source of water in order to fill and the excess water dumped must have a place to exit the canal without it overflowing. Being able to provide this water source was one of the most important problems to be solved by Pierre Paul Riquet, its creator.
The Couzon is a river in the Loire department of France, a tributary of the Gier, which in turn is a tributary of the Rhône. A dam on the river, built to serve as a reservoir for the Givors canal, now provides drinking water to the town of Rive-de-Gier.
