Loire Valley
French World Heritage Site
The Loire Valley (French: Vallée de la Loire, pronounced [vale də la lwaʁ]), spanning 280 kilometres (170 mi), is a valley located in the middle stretch of the Loire river in central France, in both the administrative regions Pays de la Loire and Centre-Val de Loire. The area of the Loire Valley comprises about 800 square kilometres (310 sq mi). It is referred to as the Cradle of the French and the Garden of France due to the abundance of vineyards, fruit orchards (such as cherries), and artichoke and asparagus fields, which line the banks of the river. Notable for its historic towns, architecture, and wines, the valley has been inhabited since the Middle Palaeolithic period. In 2000, UNESCO added the central part of the Loire River valley to its list of World Heritage Sites.
Geography and climate
The valley includes historic towns such as Amboise, Angers, Blois, Chinon, Montsoreau, Orléans, Saumur, and Tours.
The climate is favourable most of the year, the river often acting as a line of demarcation in France's weather between the northern climate and the southern. The river has a significant effect on the mesoclimate of the region, adding a few degrees of temperature. The climate can be cool with springtime frost while wine harvest months may have rain. Summers are hot; however, influences from the Atlantic moderate the temperature with breezes.
The public source identifies “Loire Valley” as french World Heritage Site. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Loire, Valley and French.
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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 Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1050483. VIAF identifies the subject as 316429669. Authority coordinates are 47.216, 0.062. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “Loire Valley” 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.