Gard

Department

Prefecture building of the Gard department, in Nîmes

Flag

Coat of arms

Location of Gard in France

Coordinates: 44°7′41″N 4°4′54″E / 44.12806°N 4.08167°ECoordinates: 44°7′41″N 4°4′54″E / 44.12806°N 4.08167°E

Government

• President of the General Council

Jean Denat (PS)

Area

• Total

5,853 km² (2,260 sq mi)

Population (2013)

• Total

733,201

• Rank

32nd

• Density

130/km² (320/sq mi)

Time zone

CET (UTC+1)

• Summer (DST)

CEST (UTC+2)

^1 French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km²

Gard (French pronunciation: [ɡaʁ]; Occitan: Gard) is a department in southern France in the Occitanie region.

The department is named after the River Gardon, and the Occitan name of the river has been replacing the French name of the department in recent decades, even among French speakers.

See also: History of Gard ()
The Gard area was settled by the Romans in classical times. It was crossed by the Via Domitia, which was constructed in 118 BC.

Gard is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from the ancient province of Languedoc.

It was originally intended to include the canton of Ganges in the department which would have been geographically logical, but Ganges was transferred to the neighbouring department of Hérault at the outset. In return, Gard received from Hérault the fishing port of Aigues Mortes which gave the department its own outlet to the Gulf of Lion.

During the middle of the nineteenth century the prefecture, traditionally a centre of commerce with a manufacturing sector focused on textiles, was an early beneficiary of railway development, becoming an important railway junction. Several luxurious hotels were built, and the improved market access provided by the railways also encouraged, initially, a rapid growth in wine growing: however, many of the department's viticulturalists were ruined by the arrival in 1872 of phylloxera.

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Wikipedia