SEINE RIVER

river of France, its second longest after the Loire. The Seine rises on the Langres Plateau, 18 miles (30 km) northwest of Dijon, and flows through Paris in a northwesterly direction before emptying into the English Channel at Le Havre. It has a total length of 485 miles (780 km). The Seine drains an area of about 30,400 square miles (78,700 square km) in northern France. Its drainage network carries most of France's inland waterway traffic. Several major tributaries, including the Aube, Yonne, Marne, and Oise rivers, have developed within a series of escarpments and vales, thus dissecting the Seine's basin into three distinct regions. In its upper course on the Langres Plateau, the Seine rises at 1,545 feet (471 m) above sea level on Mount Tasselot in the Cte d'Or region of Burgundy and flows 90 miles (145 km) northwestward to the small town of Romilly. Joined by the Aube River near Romilly, the middle course of the Seine bears west to skirt the le-de-France in a wide valley to Montereau, where it receives the Yonne River on its left bank. Turning northwest again, the Seine crosses the le-de-France toward Paris. The river continues northwestward across the limestone plateau in a broad trench, receiving the Marne and the Oise rivers above and below Paris, respectively. The lower course of the Seine, below Paris, is directed in a general northwesterly direction toward its estuary in the English Channel. Rouen, although some 75 miles (120 km) from the sea, was once France's main seaport, but it has been superseded by Le Havre on the northern shore of the Seine's broad estuary, which opens rapidly and extends 16 miles (26 km) below Tancarville. Most of the river basin is formed of permeable rocks whose absorptive capacity mitigates the risk of river floods. Precipitation throughout the basin is evenly distributed (generally 25 to 30 inches [650 to 750 mm]), with some snow on the higher southern and eastern margins. The Seine, especially below Paris, is one of France's major waterways, carrying primarily building materials and petroleum products. The Rhine, Rhne, and Seine river basins and their drainage network. river of France, after the Loire its longest. It rises 18 miles (30 kilometres) northwest of Dijon and flows in a northwesterly direction through Paris before emptying into the English Channel at Le Havre. The river is 485 miles (780 kilometres) long and with its tributaries drains an area of about 30,400 square miles (78,700 square kilometres). It is one of Europe's great historic rivers, and its drainage network carries most of the French inland waterway traffic. Since the early Middle Ages it has been above all the river of Paris, and the mutual interdependence of the river and the city that was established at its major crossing points has been indissolubly forged. The fertile centre of its basin in the le-de-France was the cradle of the French monarchy and the nucleus of the expanding nation-state and is still its heartland and metropolitan region. Additional reading The earliest scientific work on the Seine is Eugne Belgrand, La Seine, tudes hydrologiques: rgime de la pluie, des sources, des eaux courantes (1872), with an accompanying Atlas (1873), which is still valuable despite its age. Development of navigation on the river is surveyed in Aim V. Perpillou, "Un Exemple de canalisation de rivire: la Seine, in his Gographie de la circulation: conditions gnrales de la navigation intrieure (1950), pp. 3749. Jacques Gras, Le Bassin de Paris mridional (1963), examines the morphology of the Paris and Loire basins, as well as of the Loing valley and part of the Yonne basin. Useful information on the Seine basin is found in Les Bassins de la Seine et des cours d'eau Normands (1975), published by Agence Financire de Bassin Seine-Normandie. Available English-language sources include such travel books as Anthony Glyn, The Seine (1966); and William Davenport, The Seine: From Its Source, to Paris, to the Sea (1968). Evelyn Bernette Ackerman, Village on the Seine: Tradition and Change in Bonnires, 18151914 (1978), is a scholarly examination of history and socioeconomic conditions as influenced by the river. Monique Dacharry