Gironde estuary

The Gironde is a navigable estuary (often falsely referred to as a river), in southwest France and is formed from the meeting of the rivers Dordogne and Garonne just downstream of the centre of Bordeaux. Covering around 635 km² (245 sq mi), it is the largest estuary in western Europe.

The Gironde is approximately 80 km (50 mi) long and 3–11 km (2–7 miles) wide and the French département Gironde is named after it. The Gironde is subject to very strong tidal currents and great care is needed when navigating the estuary by any size or type of boat.

Second World War

The Gironde was the setting for Operation Frankton, a British special forces operation in December 1942 during the Second World War tasked with destroying shipping moored at the docks in Bordeaux. These German blockade runners were causing havoc in the Western Approaches. The British Operation was led by "Blondie" Hasler, a Royal Marine Commando, who had a long-standing interest in canoe operations, and of the 12 men who commenced what was in essence a suicide mission, only two survived. The others were either drowned, killed by the Germans while on active service, or executed under Hitler's (illegal) "Commandos" order.

Gironde

Gironde (French pronunciation: ​[ʒiʁɔ̃d]; in Occitan Gironda) is a common name for the Gironde estuary, where the mouths of the Garonne and Dordogne rivers merge, and for a department in the Aquitaine-Limousin-Poitou-Charentes region situated in southwest France. The Bordeaux wine region is in the Gironde.

History

Gironde is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Guyenne and Gascony.

From 1793 to 1795, the department's name was changed to Bec-d'Ambès to avoid the association with the revolutionary party, the Girondists.

Geography

Gironde is part of the current region of Aquitaine-Limousin-Poitou-Charentes and is surrounded by the departments of Landes, Lot-et-Garonne, Dordogne and Charente-Maritime and the Atlantic Ocean on the west. With an area of 10,000 km², Gironde is the largest department in metropolitan France. If overseas departments are included, however, Gironde's land area is dwarfed by the 83,846 km² of Guyane.