CALVADOS

dpartement, Basse-Normandie rgion, northern France. It fronts the English Channel in Seine Bay between the Cotentin peninsula (west) and the Seine River estuary (east). It was formed in 1790 from the districts of Bessin, Cinglais, Himois, the Campagne de Caen, and Auge and the western part of Lieuvin. Its name derives from a reef off Asnelles, which had been named for the Salvador, a ship of the Spanish Armada believed to have been wrecked on the rocks in 1588. The dpartement is backed on the south and west by the low Normandy hills and is drained by several rivers, including the Aure and Orne. Its capital is Caen. Calvados is chiefly a stock-raising area. Its damp, mild climate is conducive to rich pastures, especially in Bessin and Auge, where dairying is important and large quantities of butter and cheese are produced. In Campagne de Caen and Lieuvin, corn, sugar beets, and fodder crops are raised. Cider brandy (known as calvados) is distilled from locally grown apples. Building stone used in many historic buildings in England as well as in northern France was quarried in the Caen district. Iron ore, mined south of Caen, is processed locally. Tourism is a major source of income, and Deauville and Trouville are among several coast resorts. Calvados is divided into four arrondissements whose centres are: Caen, Lisieux (qq.v.), Bayeux, and Vire. Caen is the seat of a court of appeal and the centre of an acadmie (academic district). The dpartement forms the diocese of Bayeux. At Falaise, in the south, is the castle of the first dukes of Normandy, the birthplace of William I the Conqueror. Omaha Beach, that section of the Normandy coast where units of the U.S. First Army landed on June 6, 1944, and from which they penetrated into France during World War II, is on the shores of Calvados between Grandcamp-les-Bains (west) and Port-en-Bessin (east), northwest of Bayeux. Area 2,142 square miles (5,548 square km). Pop. (1982) 589,559; (1994 est.) 632,462.