Saône-et-Loire (Sona-et-Lêre in Arpitan language) is a French department, named after the Saône and the Loire rivers between which it lies.
When it was formed during the French Revolution, as of March 4, 1790 in fulfillment of the law of December 22, 1789, the new department combined parts of the provinces of southern Burgundy and Bresse, uniting lands that had no previous common history nor political unity and which have no true geographical uni...
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Saône-et-Loire (Sona-et-Lêre in Arpitan language) is a French department, named after the Saône and the Loire rivers between which it lies.
When it was formed during the French Revolution, as of March 4, 1790 in fulfillment of the law of December 22, 1789, the new department combined parts of the provinces of southern Burgundy and Bresse, uniting lands that had no previous common history nor political unity and which have no true geographical unity. Thus its history is that of Burgundy, and is especially to be found in the local histories of Autun, Mâcon, Chalon-sur-Saône, Charolles and Louhans.
Saône-et-Loire is the seventh largest department of France and the most densely populated in the region of Bourgogne. In the west the department is composed of the hills of the Autunois, the region around Autun, of the Charollais and of the Mâconnais. In the center it is traversed from north to south by the Saône in its wide plain; the Saône is a tributary of the River Rhône that joins it at...
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