Saumur
commune in Maine-et-Loire, France
Saumur (French: [somyʁ] ) is a commune in and subprefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department in western France.
The town is located between the Loire and Thouet rivers, and is surrounded by the vineyards of Saumur itself, Chinon, Bourgueil, Coteaux du Layon, etc. Saumur station has rail connections to Tours, Angers, La Roche-sur-Yon and Nantes.
Toponymy
First attested in the Medieval Latin form of Salmuri in 968 AD, the origin of the name is obscure. Albert Dauzat hypothesized a pre-Celtic unattested element *sala 'marshy ground' (cf. Celtic salm 'which jumps and flows'), followed by another unattested element meaning "wall". Many places in Europe seem to contain *Sal(m)- elements, which may share Old European roots.
History
The Dolmen de Bagneux on the south of the town, is 23 meters long and is built from 15 large slabs of the local stone, weighing over 500 tons. It is the largest in France.
The Château de Saumur was constructed in the 10th century to protect the Loire River crossing from Norman attacks after the settlement of Saumur was sacked in 845.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Saumur” as commune in Maine-et-Loire, France. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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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 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q193821. VIAF identifies the subject as 140735482. The Library of Congress control number is n82006706. Authority coordinates are 47.259, -0.078. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Saumur” 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.