Hi!

Land of greeting and contrast, the area of Nord-Pas-de-Calais, the land of the chtimis, where there is no rain, is also at the parting of the ways of Europe with the tunnel under the Manche, The European TGV and the common market. Small tract of land (12 500 km²) but with high density of people (4 millions of inhabitants), this area consists only of two departments and it is why it is such a special area!

Nord spread out about 350 km along an artificial border with Belgium. Nord is only 6 km wide in its narrow place near Armentières. It could be divided into five parts:

• Seaboard Flanders with its sandy coast and the harbour of Dunkerque: the flat land;

• Inside Flanders, agricultural, with its mounts;

• The lilloise metropolis, wide industrial conurbation which regroups 1 million of inhabitants of the 2.5 of the department;

• Hainaut, which was the country of miners and the metallurgy of iron and steel in the past, around Valenciennes;

• Avesnois, verdant area.

Pas-de-Calais is wider and was born from the merging by Artois, an area which was tied up the Netherlands about 150 years ago, and by the coastline between the mouths of Authie and Aa, an area which was an artésienne dependence in the past which was tied up earlier and for a while the Picardie. Even Pas-de-Calais is nearby the sea it belongs to the earth. Pas-de-Calais is less an residential area and densely populated than Nord (1.5 millions of inhabitants with 1 million living in the mining area). If its substratum was spring of wealth with the coal its first resource were directly or not bonded to the agriculture.

Have a good travel with this web site...