CALVADOS, a department of north-western France, formed in 1790 out of Bessin, Cinglais, Hiemois, Bocage, the Campagne de Caen, Auge and the western part of Lieuvin. Pop. (1931) 401, Area, 2,197 sq.m. It received its name from a ledge of rocks, stretching along the coast for a distance of about 15 m. between the mouths of the rivers Orne and Vire. It is bounded north by the English channel, east by the department of Eure, south by that of Orne, west by that of Manche. In the south-west are the hills of Normandy (maximum height 1,197 ft.) which run in a north westerly direction and cross a portion of the Bocage—a region of Devonian, Silurian and Cambrian rocks related structurally to the Armorican massif. The remainder of the department is low lying and is drained by numerous streams. The deep valleys of the lower courses of the Orne and the Touques suggest that the slope was once greater than it is at present and a recent sub sidence as elsewhere in the English channel has led to the forma tion of estuaries. The Campagne de Caen is a region of Jurassic rocks noted for its horse-breeding. In the north-west and east are Cretaceous rocks. Here is good pasture land and butter, eggs and cheese (Camembert, Livarot, Pont l'Eveque) are exported. The chief crops are wheat, oats, barley, colza and potatoes. The or chards of Auge and Bessin produce good cider and cider brandy (known as "Calvados") is distilled. The spinning and weaving of wool and cotton are the chief industries. There are also iron mines, paper-mills, oil-mills, tanneries, saw-mills, ship-building yards, rope-works, dye-works, distilleries and bleach-fields, scat tered throughout the department, and building stone, slate and lime are plentiful. There are many fishing villages, lobster, oyster, herring and mackerel fisheries being important. Trouville is the chief of the numerous coast resorts. Caen and Honfleur are the most important commercial ports. There is a canal 9 m. in length from Caen to Ouistreham on the coast.
The department is served by the Ouest-Etat railway. It is divided into the four arrondissements (38 cantons, 763 communes) of Caen, Bayeux, Lisieux and Vire. Caen, the capital, is the seat of a court of appeal and the centre of an academie (educational division) . The department forms the diocese of Bayeux, in the ecclesiastical province of Rouen, and belongs to the region of the III. Army Corps. The other principal towns are Falaise, Lisieux, Conde-sur-Noireau, Vire, Honfleur and Trouville (q.v.).
Caen has fine Romanesque and Gothic churches, St. Etienne, La Trinite, St. Pierre ; and fine Gothic churches occur elsewhere, particularly at St. Pierre-sur-Dives, Lisieux, Bayeux, Norrey, a good example of the Norman-Gothic style, and Tour-en-Bessin, in which Romanesque and Gothic architecture are mingled. Fon taine-Henri has a château of the 15th and i6th centuries. The castle at Falaise is an important historic monument.