It joins the right bank and is one of the main ones. Additionally, it’s joined by the Lot and has named 2 French departments. The Tarn flows westward from Mount Lozère’s source. Flows through deep gorges called Gorges du Tarn. Joins the Garonne at Moissac, 4 km downstream. The Tarn has a catchment area of about 12,000 km². Drains approximately 140 m3 of water per second. In 1930, it flooded and killed 300 in Montauban. The flood caused the Tarn to rise 17 m. The Millau Viaduct crosses the Tarn valley and is a regional attraction.
Story
The Tarn rises on the Mont Lozère plateau in the Cévennes, in the territory of the commune of Le Pont-de-Montvert. The Tarn changes direction in many directions, generally south-west to west, first flowing through the Cévennes National Park, then through the Grands Causses Regional Nature Park, and after about 380 kilometres (380 mi) below Moissac, in the floodplain of the Malause dam, it flows as a right-hand tributary into the Garonne.
On its way, the Tarn crosses the departments of Lozère, Aveyron, Haute-Garonne, Tarn and Tarn-et-Garonne. In the latter two, the river also serves as a namesake.
Departments and towns
The Millau Viaduct, the highest bridge in the world, which carries the A75 motorway over the Tarn Gorge at Millau, was opened in December 2004.
The Tarn is known for its brutal floods, which, along with the Danube, are the most dangerous in Europe. In the March 1930 floods, the level of the Tarn at Montauban rose more than 17 metres above its normal level in just 24 hours, with a flow of 7,000 cubic metres per second (250,000 m3/s) (the average flow of the Rhine is 2,200 cubic metres per second (78,000 m3/s); the average flow of the Nile during the traditional annual floods before the construction of the Aswan Dam was 8 500 cubic metres per second (300 000 m3/s); the average flow of the Mississippi River is 16 200 cubic metres per second (570 000 m3/s)). One third of the department of Tarn-et-Garonne was flooded, about 300 people were killed, thousands of houses were destroyed, the low-lying districts of Montauban were destroyed and the town of Moissac was almost entirely destroyed.
