Langon is a
communeThe commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...
in the
GirondeFor the Revolutionary party, see Girondists.Gironde is a common name for the Gironde estuary, where the mouths of the Garonne and Dordogne rivers merge, and for a department in the Aquitaine region situated in southwest France.-History:...
department in
AquitaineAquitaine , archaic Guyenne/Guienne , is one of the 27 regions of France, in the south-western part of metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. It comprises the 5 departments of Dordogne, :Lot et Garonne, :Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes...
in southwestern
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.
Geography
Langon is in the southern part of the department 48 km (29.8 mi) southeast of
BordeauxBordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
on the left bank of the
GaronneThe Garonne is a river in southwest France and northern Spain, with a length of .-Source:The Garonne's headwaters are to be found in the Aran Valley in the Pyrenees, though three different locations have been proposed as the true source: the Uelh deth Garona at Plan de Beret , the Ratera-Saboredo...
river. It lies near the border between a wine-growing region (Premières côtes de Bordeaux) and the
forest of LandesThe Landes forest or the Landes of Gascony , in the historic Gascony region of southwestern France now known as Aquitaine, is the largest maritime-pine forest in Europe...
.
Population
Transport
Traditionally it was a stop on the Bordeaux-
ToulouseToulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
route; the city is now served by the Deux-Mers autoroute. (
A62The A62 autoroute is a French motorway forming part of the Autoroute de Deux Mers.The road is the western portion of the Autoroute de Deux Mers connecting Toulouse with Bordeaux with a junction with the A630...
Bordeaux-Toulouse).
Langon is also a pivotal point in the
Itinéraire à Grand GabaritThe Itinéraire à Grand Gabarit is a water and road route that has been created in order to allow the transport of the outsize structural sections of the Airbus A380 airliner from their point of manufacture to Toulouse for final assembly. The route was largely created by modifying existing waterways...
, the waterway and road route constructed to allow the transportation of the fuselage sections and wings of the
Airbus A380 airlinerThe Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine jet airliner manufactured by the European corporation Airbus, a subsidiary of EADS. It is the largest passenger airliner in the world. Due to its size, many airports had to modify and improve facilities to accommodate it...
to the final assembly point in Toulouse. These components are brought to Langon by barge, where they are transferred at a specially constructed dock to outsize road vehicles. These then proceed in convoy via an indirect southerly route to Toulouse.
Sights
A visit to
Château de RoquetailladeThe Château de Roquetaillade is a castle in Mazères , in the French département of Gironde.Charlemagne, on his way to the Pyrenees with Roland, built the first fortification there...
, historical monument is a must
http://www.roquetaillade.eu.