About Gironde, Aquitaine

It is well known for the Côte d'Argent beach which is Europe's longest, and attracts many surfers to Lacanau each year.

Major towns include

Arcachon

Arcachon is a commune in the Gironde department in southwestern France. It is a popular bathing location on the Atlantic coast 34 miles southwest of Bordeaux in the Landes forest. It has a fine beach, and a mild climate said to be favourable for invalids suffering from pulmonary complaints.

At its southern entrance from the Atlantic ocean, Arcachon Bay is crowned by Europe's largest sand dune, the Dune de Pyla (or du Pilat), nearly 3 kilometres long, 500 metres wide, reaching 107 metres in height, and moving inland at rate of 5 metres a year. Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a port city in southwest France, with one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area at a 2008 estimate. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture of the Gironde department. Its inhabitants are called Bordelais.

The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, with a population of 1,200,000 inhabitants, is the fifth largest metropolitan area in France. The city is among the world's major wine industry centres. Bordeaux wine draws its name from the famous wine that has been produced in the region since the 8th century.

Bordeaux has about 117,000 hectares of vineyards, 57 appellations, 9,000 wine-producing châteaux, 13,000 grape growers, 400 traders and sales of 14.5 billion euros annually. With an annual production of over 700 million bottles, Bordeaux produces large quantities of everyday wine as well as some of the most expensive wines in the world. Included among the latter are the area's five 'premier cru' (first growth) red wines (four from Médoc and one, Chateau Haut-Brion, from Graves), established by the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855.