Pays de la Loire (French pronunciation: ​[pe.i də la lwaʁ]; Breton: Broioù al Liger) is one of the 18 regions of France. It is one of the regions created in the 1950s to serve as a zone of influence for its capital, Nantes, one of a handful so-called "balancing metropolises" (métropoles d'équilibre)¹. Other examples of "artificially created" regions include Rhône-Alpes, which was created as the region for Lyon, and Midi-Pyrénées, which was created as the region for Toulouse.

Geography

Pays de la Loire is made up of the following historical provinces:

The Loire (French pronunciation: ​[lwaʁ]; Occitan: Léger; Breton: Liger) is the longest river in France. With a length of 1,012 kilometres (629 mi), it drains an area of 117,054 km² (45,195 sq mi), or more than a fifth of France's land area, and is the 171st longest river in the world.

It rises in the highlands of the southeastern quarter of the Massif Central in the Cévennes range (in the department of Ardèche) at 1,350 m (4,430 ft) near Mont Gerbier de Jonc; it flows north for over 1,000 km (620 mi) through Nevers to Orléans, then west through Tours and Nantes until it reaches the Bay of Biscay (Atlantic Ocean) at St Nazaire. Its main tributaries include the rivers Nièvre, Maine and the Erdre on its right bank, and the rivers Allier, Cher, Indre, Vienne, and the Sèvre Nantaise to the left bank.

The Loire gives its name to six departments: Loire, Haute-Loire, Loire-Atlantique, Indre-et-Loire, Maine-et-Loire, and Saône-et-Loire. The central part of the Loire Valley, located in the Centre region, was added to the World Heritage Sites list of UNESCO on December 2, 2000. Vineyards and chateaux are found along the banks of the river throughout this area.