Mont-Saint-Michel (Le) (Municipality, Manche, France)

Last modified: 2004-10-02 by ivan sache
Keywords: manche | mont-saint-michel (le) | fleurs-de-lys: 3 (yellow) | scallops: 10 (white) |
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by Arnaud Leroy

• Presentation of Mont-Saint-Michel
• History of Mont-Saint-Michel
• Flags of Mont-Saint-Michel
• Flag of the Logis de Tiphaine

See also:

• France
• Manche (Department, France)

Presentation of Mont-Saint-Michel

Mont-Saint-Michel is the most visited place in France, and deserves its reputation because of its unique site and architecture.
Administratively, Mont-Saint-Michel is a municipality of 72 inhabitants (Montois).

Mont-Saint-Michel is a small granitic island of ca. 900 m of circumference and 80 m of elevation, linked to the mainland by a dike built in 1877. The Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, including the island and the companion uninhabited islet of Tomblaine, is listed as World Heritage by UNESCO (1979). The Bay has the shore with the highest tides (maximum foreshore 15 m) in France.
Polders protected by dikes have been established there since (at least) the XIth century, and the area is famous for its moutons de prés-salés ('salted-pasture sheep'), which graze on the herbus a grass very rich in salt and have a very specific taste.

Unfortunately, the Bay is subjected to constant silting up, and Mont-Saint-Michel is really an island only a few days per year. A huge project of restoration of the Bay shall involve the replacement of the dike by a bridge and the suppression of some o