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Dune Du Pilat
The Dune of Pilat ( French: ''Dune du Pilat'', official name), also called ''Grande Dune du Pilat'', is the tallest sand dune in Europe. It is located in La Teste-de-Buch in the Arcachon Bay area, France, 60 km (37.2 mi) southwest of Bordeaux. With more than two million visitors per year, the Dune of Pilat is a famous tourist destination. Location The Dune Of Pilat is located at the southern entrance to the Arcachon basin, in the locality of Pyla-sur-Mer, which is administratively dependent on the municipality of La Teste-de-Buch, near Arcachon, in the heart of the Landes de Gascogne. Characteristics The dune has a volume of about 60,000,000 m³, measuring around 500 m wide from east to west and 2.7 km in length from north to south (1.35 km2). Its height was 106.60 m above sea level as of 2018. The dune is considered a foredune, meaning a dune that runs parallel to a shoreline, behind the high tide line of a beach. The dune has been observed to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Landes De Gascogne
The Landes de Gascogne (in Gascon, classic spelling ''las Lanas de Gasconha'', Fébusienne spelling ''leus Lanes de Gascougne''), or Gascony Moors, is a natural region of France of nearly . It extends over three departments: Gironde, Landes and Lot-et-Garonne, and includes 386 communes. The region is a flat, sandy plain in the west of the Aquitaine Basin beside the Atlantic Ocean. The interior is cut off from the sea by a barrier of dunes. It is dominated by pine forests that cover 66% of the territory, with islets of agriculture over 18% of the territory. Before humans began to modify the landscape the Landes de Gascogne was covered by a mixed forest of deciduous and coniferous trees. This was largely cleared by around 600 AD and replaced by moorland (''landes''). Both sheep and cattle grazed here, but an epizootic in 1775 destroyed the cows and only sheep remained. The popular image of the Landes was that of a Gascon shepherd standing on stilts to watch over his flock. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dunes Of France
A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat regions covered with wind-swept sand or dunes with little or no vegetation are called ''Erg (landform), ergs'' or ''sand seas''. Dunes occur in different shapes and sizes, but most kinds of dunes are longer on the wiktionary:stoss, stoss (upflow) side, where the sand is pushed up the dune, and have a shorter ''slip face'' in the lee side. The valley or trough between dunes is called a ''dune slack''. Dunes are most common in desert environments, where the lack of moisture hinders the growth of vegetation that would otherwise interfere with the development of dunes. However, sand deposits are not restricted to deserts, and dunes are also found along sea shores, along streams in semiarid climates, in areas of glacial outwash, and in othe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paragliding
Paragliding is the recreational and competitive adventure sport of flying paragliders: lightweight, free-flying, foot-launched glider aircraft with no rigid primary structure. The pilot sits in a harness or lies supine in a cocoon-like 'pod' suspended below a fabric wing. Wing shape is maintained by the suspension lines, the pressure of air entering vents in the front of the wing, and the aerodynamic forces of the air flowing over the outside. Despite not using an engine, paraglider flights can last many hours and cover many hundreds of kilometres, though flights of one to two hours and covering some tens of kilometres are more the norm. By skillful exploitation of sources of lift, the pilot may gain height, often climbing to altitudes of a few thousand metres. History In 1966, Canadian Domina Jalbert was granted a patent for a ''multi-cell wing type aerial device—''"a wing having a flexible canopy constituting an upper skin and with a plurality of longitudinally extend ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly applied to Iron Age Europe and the Ancient Near East, but also, by analogy, to other parts of the Old World. The duration of the Iron Age varies depending on the region under consideration. It is defined by archaeological convention. The "Iron Age" begins locally when the production of iron or steel has advanced to the point where iron tools and weapons replace their bronze equivalents in common use. In the Ancient Near East, this transition took place in the wake of the Bronze Age collapse, in the 12th century BC. The technology soon spread throughout the Mediterranean Basin region and to South Asia (Iron Age in India) between the 12th and 11th century BC. Its further spread to Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and Central Europe is somewhat dela ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metro International
Metro International is a Swedish global media company based in Luxembourg that publishes the ''Metro'' newspapers. Metro International's advertising sales have grown at a compound annual growth rate of 41 percent since launch of the first newspaper edition in 1995. It is a freesheet, meaning that distribution is free, with revenues thus generated entirely through advertising. This newspaper is primarily intended for commuters who move daily in and out of big cities' business areas, mainly during rush hours. The company was founded by Per Andersson and started as a subsidiary of the Modern Times Group along with Viasat Broadcasting. It is now controlled through the Mats Qviberg owned investment company Custos. The first edition of the newspaper was published as ''Metro Stockholm'' and distributed in the Stockholm metro. , all European editions (except for the Hungarian one) have been sold, reportedly so that Metro International can focus on Latin America, considered the la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gascon Dialect
Gascon (; , ) is the name of the vernacular Romance variety spoken mainly in the region of Gascony, France. It is often considered a variety of Occitan, although some authors consider it a different language.Cf. Rohlfs, Gerhard. 1970. ''Le Gascon. Études de philologie pyrénéenne'', 2e éd. Tubingen, Max Niemeyer, & Pau, Marrimpouey jeune. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn (Béarnese dialect) in southwestern France (in parts of the following French ''départements'': Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Hautes-Pyrénées, Landes, Gers, Gironde, Lot-et-Garonne, Haute-Garonne, and Ariège) and in the Val d'Aran of Catalonia. Aranese, a southern Gascon variety, is spoken in Catalonia alongside Catalan and Spanish. Most people in the region are trilingual in all three languages, causing some influence from Spanish and Catalan. Both these influences tend to differentiate it more and more from the dialects of Gascon spoken in France. Most linguists now consider Aranese a dist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atlantic Wall
The Atlantic Wall (german: link=no, Atlantikwall) was an extensive system of coastal defences and fortifications built by Nazi Germany between 1942 and 1944 along the coast of continental Europe and Scandinavia as a defence against an anticipated Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe from the United Kingdom, during World War II. The manning and operation of the Atlantic Wall was administratively overseen by the German Army, with some support from ''Luftwaffe'' ground forces. The ''Kriegsmarine'' (German Navy) maintained a separate coastal defence network, organised into a number of sea defence zones. Hitler ordered the construction of the fortifications in 1942 through his Führer Directive No. 40. More than half a million French workers were drafted to build it. The wall was frequently mentioned in Nazi propaganda, where its size and strength were usually exaggerated. The fortifications included colossal coastal guns, batteries, mortars, and artillery, and thousands o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foredune
A foredune is a dune ridge that runs parallel to the shore of an ocean, lake, bay, or estuary. Foredunes consist of sand deposited by wind on a vegetated part of the shore. Foredunes can be classified generally as ''incipient'' or ''established''. Formation Foredunes may begin as ''shadow dunes'' that form in the wind shadows of clumps of vegetation. Several shadow dunes may eventually join to form an incipient foredune. When an incipient foredune reaches a height of about , it has a significant wind shadow of its own. Wind-blown sand will tend to fall on this incipient dune rather than traveling further inland. When a foredune becomes high, it may trap all of the wind-blown sand from the beach. In active dune systems, the foredunes appear closest to the sea or other body of water. However, some dune systems, such as those on eroding coasts, do not have foredunes. In those systems, other kinds of dunes may be closest to the water. A foredune ecosystem begins with the first du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arcachon
Arcachon ( ; ) is a commune in the southwestern French department of Gironde. It is a popular seaside resort on the Atlantic coast southwest of Bordeaux, in the Landes forest. It has a sandy beach and a mild climate said to be favourable for invalids suffering from pulmonary complaints. Arcachon is twinned with five cities. History On 2 May 1857, Emperor Napoleon III signed an imperial decree declaring that Arcachon was now an autonomous municipality; coincidentally, the railway line extension from Bordeaux to Arcachon had been completed that same year. At that time, Arcachon was scarcely more than a forest of pine trees, oaks and strawberry trees (arbutus), with no road links and few real houses, with a population fewer than 400 people, mostly fishermen and peasants. In earlier years, when some hygienists began to recommend sea bathing, three sea establishments were laid out by investors to attract the Bordeaux bourgeoisie and other wealthy people. This was the beginning ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture of the Gironde department. Its inhabitants are called ''"Bordelais"'' (masculine) or ''"Bordelaises"'' (feminine). The term "Bordelais" may also refer to the city and its surrounding region. The city of Bordeaux proper had a population of 260,958 in 2019 within its small municipal territory of , With its 27 suburban municipalities it forms the Bordeaux Metropolis, in charge of metropolitan issues. With a population of 814,049 at the Jan. 2019 census. it is the fifth most populated in France, after Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Lille and ahead of Toulouse. Together with its suburbs and exurbs, except satellite cities of Arcachon and Libourne, the Bordeaux metropolitan area had a population of 1,363,711 that same year (Jan. 2019 census), ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
