Landes

Landes, a maritime department of southern France, one of the largest and most thinly peopled in the country, is bounded on the W. by the Bay of Biscay. Area, 3598 sq. m.; pop. (1876) 303,508; (1891) 297,842. The chief river is the Adour (navigable). The greater portion of the department consists of the landes, tracts of barren sand, interspersed with marshes and forests of pine and oak and cork, forming one of the dreariest regions in Europe. The inhabitants are mostly of Gascon race, small and the reverse of robust in appearance, yet capable of great endurance. They herd sheep (no longer requiring to traverse the marshes on stilts), grow wine, and extract the products of the forests (timber, resin, cork, charcoal, &c.). Fowling and fishing also yield good returns. The Bayonne hams are obtained from pigs bred and fed in the landes. Besides wine, the soil is made to yield rye, maize, wheat, &c., especially in the hilly district called Chalosse, to the south of the Adour. By means of draining operations and the planting (since 1787) of forest trees rapid progress has been made in the reclamation of the soil and its cultivation. Although it has a coast-line of 75 miles long, the department does not possess a single harbour. A belt of sand-dunes, 2½ miles wide and reaching 300 feet in height, fringes the seashore from north to south. About 20,000 tons of iron ore are smelted annually. The mineral springs of Dax were known to the Romans. The railway from Bordeaux to Bayonne passes through the district from north to south. The department is divided into three arrondissements, Mont-de-Marsan, St Sever, and Dax. Capital, Mont-de-Marsan. See FRANCE, Vol. IV. p. 771.