CAMARGUE, the thinly-populated Rhone delta, department of Bouches-du-Rhone, France. It is a marshy alluvial plain be tween the Grand Rhone to the east and the Petit Rhone to the west. Its average elevation is from 62 to 8 feet. The Camargue has a coast-line some 3om. in length and an area of 290 square miles. About a quarter of this, along the river banks, is fertile and cultivated. The rest is rough pasture for sheep and the local black bulls and white horses, or marsh, stagnant water and salty areas. It is a centre for sea-birds, flamingoes and bustards. The >?tang de Vaccares, the largest of the numerous lagoons, covers about 23 sq.m. ; it receives three main drainage canals. Inlets in the protecting sea-dike let in water for the purposes of the lagoon fisheries and salt-pans; and the river water is used for irrigation and for the submersion of vines. Hard winters and scorching summers are the rule ; the mistral, blowing from the north and north-west, is the prevailing wind.
Many details of the region are discussed in R. D. Oldham's "Portolan Maps of the Rhone Delta," Geogr. Journ. lxv., p. 403 (1925).