ÎLE-DE-FRANCE - Geography and history
Nestling in the hollow of the vast natural amphitheatre formed by the Paris Basin, the Île-de-France has an area of 12 000 km2.
The relief takes the form of a gently undulating base plateau of generally calcareous rock, overtopped by a few intersected hills in the north and a larger range of higher elevations to the west of Paris. Towards the southwest, these hills become more substantial and gradually open out onto the plateau of Beauce with its covering of fertile silt, and Brie on the other side of the Seine. The Seine, the Oise and the Marne flow through all these plateaux along wide, meandering, entrenched valleys, which are mostly open.
As the climate of the region is subject to both oceanic and continental influences, it is neither monotonous nor prone to extreme conditions. The winters are not cold and very hot spells are infrequent and short-lived, even in summer.
Originally, the whole of the Île-de-France was forested. Remnants of this forest remain on large tracts of sandy soil (Fontainebleau, Rambouillet), impermeable plateaux with no silt covering (Crécy, Armainvilliers), old areas of infertile alluvial deposits (Saint-Germain, Sénart), and the summits of the highest hills (Montmorency, Hautil, Marly). In 2000 23% of the land of the region was covered by forest.
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