Limoges, France

Limoges (in Occitan: Limòtges) is a commune in New Aquitaine located in the Great South-West of France, prefecture of the department of Haute-Vienne, capital of the historic province of Limousin, and chief town of the former administrative region of the same name before 2016.

Founded ex nihilo around the year 10 BC by the Roman Empire as a new capital for the Lémovices, under the name of Augustoritum, it became one of the most important Gallo-Roman cities at that time. At the decline of the Empire, in the Middle Ages, it took the name of the Celtic-Gallic people who formed its region, Limousin; it is a large city, strongly marked by the cultural influence of the Saint-Martial abbey, within the duchy of Aquitaine whose dukes are invested and crowned in this city. From the twelfth century, his enamels were exported throughout the Christian world. In 1768, the discovery of a kaolin deposit in the region of Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche allowed the development of the Limoges porcelain industry which would make it world famous. The one that remains attached to its ostensions, was nevertheless sometimes nicknamed "the red city" or "the Rome of socialism" because of its tradition of voting on the left and the workers' events that it experienced from the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century. .

Since the 1990s, the city has also been associated with its basketball club, Limoges CSP, several times French champion and European champion in 1993. It plays in the first professional division and is still the club with one of the most important French and European charts. The Limoges CSP brings the city international renown through its European courses and the often "warm" atmosphere of its mythical hall in the Beaublanc sports hall.

Due to its heritage policy, the city has had the “City of Art and History” label since 2008.

Second most populated municipality in the New Aquitaine region after Bordeaux, university town, third regional by its importance after Poitiers but before Pau and La Rochelle, administrative center and intermediate services equipped with all the facilities of a regional metropolis, its area urban area brought together 283,557 inhabitants in 2016, making it the sixth largest in the Greater South-West after Toulouse, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Perpignan and Bayonne and the 38th in France. Finally, the Limousin capital is the 28th most populated municipality in France.

A city with a tradition of butchery, headquarters of one of the world leaders in electrical equipment for buildings, it is also well positioned in the luxury industry. Known and recognized as the "capital of the arts of fire" due to the ever-present establishment of large porcelain houses, its art workshops working with enamel or stained glass, but also due to the development of its competitiveness specialized in technical and industrial ceramics. This specificity led it to join the UNESCO creative cities network in 2017 in the thematic category "Crafts and Folk Arts".

Lying on the first western foothills of the Massif Central, Limoges is crossed by the Vienne, of which it was originally the first fording point. Surrounded by a rural space preserved from any intensive cultivation or breeding, the “city that enters the countryside” extends over 78 km2.

 

Geography

Location

Limoges is inscribed on the first western foothills of the Massif Central, at 01°15'31 east longitude and 45°49'55 north latitude, Limoges is located 141.6 km west of Clermont-Ferrand and 179 1 km east of the Atlantic Ocean (Royan). Located 346.3 km south of Paris, it is located 88 km east of Angoulême, 130 km south-east of Poitiers, 180.5 km north-east of Bordeaux and 248.4 km north of Toulouse.

Located in Limousin, in the Haute-Vienne department, Limoges borders thirteen municipalities: Bonnac-la-Côte, Chaptelat, Condat-sur-Vienne, Couzeix, Feytiat, Isle, Le Palais-sur-Vienne, Panazol, Rilhac -Rancon, Saint-Gence, Solignac, Verneuil-sur-Vienne and Le Vigen. Its territory, which extends over 78 km2, is one of the largest in the Haute-Vienne department.

 

Geology and relief

Topography of Limoges.

The geographical territory of Limoges is located on the southern branch of the Hercynian chain constituting the western foothills of the Massif Central. This orogen 8,000 km long and 1,000 wide, born from the formation of Pangea by collision of Gondwana and Laurussia-Baltica, is at the origin of the Massif Central.

Under the Paleozoic era (Phanerozoic eon), from the end of the Silurian to the beginning of the Permian, the geological evolution linked to the Hercynian orogeny gave the Limoges subsoil a structure of stacked thrust sheets associated with several generations of granitoids. The result is a support base of Precambrian granitic metamorphic rocks made of gneiss and anatexis granite and constituting an ophiolitic unit formed of serpentinized peridotites associated with metagabbros.

The agglomeration covers an area of 78 km2. A tradition born in the 19th century says it was built, like Rome or Paris, on seven hills. Its altitude is, on average, 306 meters and varies from 230 meters on the banks of the Vienne to more than 430 meters, at a place called Magenta, to the northwest of the town. It is 269 at the Town Hall (Place Léon Bétoulle).

Locally, seismicity is low. Limoges has not been the epicenter of any earthquake since 1661. The last earthquake felt in the town, with an intensity of IV on the Mercalli scale, took place on April 21, 1983

 

Hydrography

Limoges is the largest city crossed by the Vienne, in the Loire watershed, the Loire-Brittany hydrographic basin and the Loire hydrographic region. Built mainly on the right bank of the river, it marks the limit between its upper basin and its middle course. The Vienne is not open to navigation or river transport because of too shallow a depth, and therefore does not come under the network of inland waterways in France.

The Aurence is a tributary of the Vienne, which gives its name to the outer district of “Val de l'Aurence” and to a homonymous ZUP. It has its source in the north of the town in the mountains of Ambazac. The Auzette has its source at a place called Le Puy de Breix, in Saint-Just-le-Martel, then crosses Panazol and Feytiat, before flowing into the Vienne at Limoges. The Palais stream and the Valoine feed the Vienne in the city, along with other rivers, such as the Rigouroux. At the Aiguille, the Briance, rolling more than 8 m3/s, brings the average flow of the Vienne to 56 m3/s. It still receives water from the Aurence and the Auzette, bringing its flow to 61 m3/s.

In the absence of large water tables, like the Limousin and its sources, Limoges is supplied with drinking water by surface reservoirs and not underground reserves, which excludes pollution by radon. This official position is challenged by many associations and journalists.

The R RESOUPLIM26 network provides quantitative monitoring of the groundwater network in the Limoges region.

 

Climate

The climate that characterizes the town is qualified, in 2010, as "altered oceanic climate", according to the typology of the climates of France which then has eight major types of climates in mainland France. In 2020, the town comes out of the same type of climate in the classification established by Météo-France, which now only counts, at first glance, five main types of climates in mainland France. It is a transition zone between the oceanic climate, the mountain climate and the semi-continental climate. The temperature differences between winter and summer increase with the distance from the sea. Rainfall is lower than at the seaside, except near the reliefs.

The climatic parameters that made it possible to establish the 2010 typology include six variables for temperature and eight for precipitation, whose values correspond to the 1971-2000 normal. The seven main variables characterizing the municipality are presented in the box below.

Communal climatic parameters over the period 1971-2000
Average annual temperature: 11.6°C
Number of days with temperature below −5°C: 3.6 d
Number of days with temperature above 30°C: 6.1 days
Annual thermal amplitude: 15°C
Annual precipitation totals: 1,009 mm
Number of days of precipitation in January: 13.7 days
Number of days of precipitation in July: 7.4 days

With climate change, these variables have evolved. A study carried out in 2014 by the General Directorate for Energy and Climate, supplemented by regional studies, predicts that the average temperature should rise and the average rainfall fall, with, however, strong regional variations. The Météo-France meteorological station installed in the town and commissioned in 1973 provides continuous monitoring of the evolution of meteorological indicators. The detailed table for the period 1981-2010 is presented below.

The average annual temperature changes from 11.2°C for the period 1971-2000 to 11.4°C for 1981-2010, then to 11.8°C for 1991-2020.