Forest of Fontainebleau
forest in France
The forest of Fontainebleau (French: Forêt de Fontainebleau, or Forêt de Bière, meaning, in old French, "forest of heather") is a mixed deciduous forest lying sixty kilometres (37 mi) southeast of Paris, France. It is located primarily in the arrondissement of Fontainebleau in the southwestern part of the department of Seine-et-Marne. Most of it also lies in the canton of Fontainebleau, although parts of it extend into adjoining cantons, and even as far west as the town of Milly-la-Forêt in the neighboring department, Essonne. Several communes lie within the forest, notably the towns of Fontainebleau and Avon. The forest has an area of 250 km2 (97 sq mi).
History
Forty thousand years ago, nomadic populations settled around the forest. Various traces of their presence have been discovered: carved stone tools, bones of such animals as bears, elephants, rhinos, and giant stags. More than 2,000 caves with rock carvings are scattered across the forest. They are attributed to all periods between the Upper Paleolithic (around 12000 BC) and modern times. However, the majority of the carvings are from the Mesolithic (between 9000 and 5500 BC).
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1293678. VIAF identifies the subject as 242277189. The Library of Congress control number is sh85050178. Authority coordinates are 48.402, 2.663. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Forest of Fontainebleau” 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.