The Calvadosdepartment is the smallest of the three departments that make up the Basse-Normandy region [ Orne, Mancheand Calvados]. At the heart of region, it has the highest population with 648,685 inhabitants in 1999, spread unevenly across its 5,548 sq. km.

Calvadosis a geologically diverse region.

Split between the Parisian basin to the east and the Armorican massif to the west, the department is made up of a patchwork of very (...)

The Calvadosdepartment is the smallest of the three departments that make up the Basse-Normandy region [ Orne, Mancheand Calvados]. At the heart of region, it has the highest population with 648,685 inhabitants in 1999, spread unevenly across its 5,548 sq. km.

Calvadosis a geologically diverse region.

Split between the Parisian basin to the east and the Armorican massif to the west, the department is made up of a patchwork of very distinctive "local regions". To the west, around Bayeux, the "Bessin" region is a low-lying plateau with features punctuated by river valleys and sprinkled with hedgerows and a number of forests.

To the south west, the Virois farmland countryside gives a foretaste of nearby Brittany's granite platform. Its undulating forms, cut out by river courses, have led to it being called the "Norman Switzerland" around the Orneand the Vire rivers. At the center of the department is the Caen plain, extended southwards by the Falaise plain.

To the east of the department, the Auge region lays on its typically Norman charm with its half-timbered farmhouses. Bordered by the Côte Fleurie coastline, it is one of the key tourist features in the Calvadosregion. The coastline landscape alternates between cliffs, gentle slopes and sandy beaches running up to Honfleur.

AN OUTSTANDING WEALTH OF HERITAGE

In spite of the destruction wreaked by the Normandy landings and the Battle of Normandy in 1944, the Calvadosregion's wealth of heritage is truly outstanding: with more than 900 historical monuments, it is among the top ranking French departments.

Each of the four main regions that make it up [the Pays d'Auge, the Caen and Falaise plain, Bessin and Bocage] have their own specific local and deeply original architecture and culture bearing witness to a vast and diversified heritage, that is spread throughout the whole department.

Churches, wayside crosses, castles and manors, country and urban houses, villas, town houses, parks and gardens, covered markets and town halls, fountains, wash houses, mills or textile mills, mines and miners, terraced houses, old rigging, museums, lace and porcelain, cider and cheese: a wealth of artistic and cultural heritage, bearing witness to history or sometimes old-fashioned ways of life which need recognizing, preserving and developing for everyone to discover and enjoy them.