Marans-La Rochelle Canal
canal in Charente-Maritime, New Aquitaine, France
The Canal de Marans à La Rochelle (French pronunciation: [kanal də maʁɑ̃ a la ʁɔʃɛl]), also known as Canal de Marans, Canal de Rompsay ([kanal də ʁɔ̃sɛ]) or Canal de La Rochelle depending on the location, is a French canal in the Charente-Maritime department that connects the city of La Rochelle with the town of Marans. It also links the Sèvre Niortaise river to the harbour at La Rochelle. The canal passes through the communes of Dompierre-sur-Mer, Andilly and Sainte-Soulle. It is 24.5 km long, with 4 locks, and has a total level change of 1.7 m. Its width is 5.2 m.
The canal was built in the 19th century to promote trade between La Rochelle and Marans. It was part of a larger project to connect the Loire river to the Adour river via a North-South canal. Napoleon I ordered the project on 17 July 1805, with the goal of linking Niort to La Rochelle. Construction began in 1806, but the canal didn't open until 1875, and it wasn't until 1888 that it fully reached La Rochelle. The canal was built using forced labour of prisoners.
“Marans-La Rochelle Canal” enters the record as canal in Charente-Maritime, New Aquitaine, France. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Marans-La, Rochelle and Canal can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q646856. Authority coordinates are 46.214, -1.045. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1805, 1806, 1875 and 1888.
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This entry incorporates text from “Marans-La Rochelle Canal” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.