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A boatman with some tourists begins a ride through the Gorges du Tarn
The Tarn (tarnis in Latin; hypothetical meaning: rapid or walled in) is a 381 kilometres (237 mi) long river in southern France (régions Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées), right tributary of the Garonne.
The Tarn runs in a roughly westerly direction, from its source at an altitude of 1,550 m on Mont Lozère in the Cévennes mountains (part of the Massif Central), through the deep gorges and canyons of the Gorges du Tarn (that cuts through the Causse du Larzac), to Moissac in Tarn-et-Garonne, where it joins the Garonne 4 km (2.5 miles) downstream the centre of town.
Its basin covers approximately 12,000 km², and it has a mean flow of approximately 140 m³ per second.
The Millau Viaduct spans the valley of the River Tarn near Millau, and is now one of the area's most popular attractions.
Main Tributaries
The tributaries of the Tarn include:
The Tarn separates the Narbonne and Aquitaine basins.
Departments and Cities
The Tarn passes through the following departments and towns:
The Millau Viaduct, the highest bridge in the world, carrying the A75 autoroute across the Tarn Gorge near Millau, opened in December 2004.
The Tarn is famous for its brutal floodings, which are the most dangerous in Europe along with the Danube River. The flooding of March 1930 saw the Tarn rise more than 17 metres (56 ft) above its normal level in Montauban in just 24 hours, with a discharge of 7,000 m³/s (average discharge of Rhine is 2,200 m³/s; average discharge of Nile River during the traditional annual flooding before the building of the Aswan Dam was 8,500 m³/s; average discharge of the Mississippi River is 16,200 m³/s). One third of the Tarn-et-Garonne département was flooded, about 300 people died, thousands of houses were destroyed, the low districts of Montauban were destroyed, the town of Moissac was almost entirely destroyed.
Tarn gorge, seen from the point sublime
References
External links
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