Its name already says a lot!
It was on March 4, 1790, that the Assemblée Constitante, born of the Revolution, gave the new département its present name. Legend has it that the name "Côte-d'Or" was chosen by a deputy, André-Rémy Arnoult, to celebrate the Côte des vins and its distinctive golden autumn color. Many Côte-d'Oriens are convinced of this. But this is pure fiction! In fact, the name derives from the geographical features of the area: the département lies between the mountainous Morvan coast to the west, and the Saône plain (facing east) to the east. Thus, Côte-d'Or should have been called "Côte-d'Orient", but - probably due to a transcription error - "Côte-d'Or" was born (or at least its name). And it was this - a century later - that inspired the Dijon writer Stéphen Liégeard, who coined the name "Côte d'Azur".
A wide variety of landscapes
The landscapes of the Côte-d'Or are particularly contrasted. The plains of the Saône (to the south-east) form the northern part of a vast ditch: the Bresse ditch. To the west is the Dijon plain and, further east, the Saône valley. The latter is made up of cultivated areas and nature reserves, while in the Dijon plain forests and cultivated land alternate. The small plain of Beaune is rich in alluvial deposits. To the west, the Auxois forms a marly and undulating plain. The Langres-Châtillonnais plateaus are remarkable for the large area they cover (more than half the department). These sedimentary rocks are essentially composed of limestone and marl layers. The dry plateaus, covered with stones, are enveloped by a thin layer of reddish brown clay. One can also distinguish the Burgundy threshold and the North Dijon mountain which correspond to a more faulted part. The highest point of the department, the mount of Gien (723 m), is located in the Morvan, in the west. Other levels are to be noted in the region of the Hautes-Côtes (between 450 and 550 meters of altitude) and that of the Dijon mountain (between 600 and 650 meters) which dominates the Côte des vins. There are also combes, i.e. depressions that are less deep than the hollows and less extensive than the valleys. They are present towards Dijon with the combe Persil, the combe Saint-Joseph and the combe à la Serpent. Near Gevrey-Chambertin, there is the Lavaux combe, and to the north-west the Val Suzon combe, classified as a Regional Nature Reserve (the first in Burgundy!). Caves and chasms are also present, such as the caves of Bèze, a sumptuous rocky amphitheatre. The existence of the first cave has been known since the dawn of time, but the second was only discovered in 1950, and the lake in 1954. The whole complex has been open to visitors since the early 1970s.
Numerous rivers and streams
In the west, the department has only a small part of the Morvan: apart from the famous Morvan forests, there are streams, springs and ponds. Rivers abound in the plains (Pays Beaune and Dijon). As for the Seine, it rises on the Châtillonnais plateaus. Whether it is a torrential river (Suzon, Serein, Ource), a plain river (Norges, Ouche, Vouge) or a navigable river (Saône), the Côte-d'Or has more than 2,500 km of waterways. Among them, the Saône is considered one of the richest rivers in Europe in terms of fish. But there are also many lakes, such as the Tille lake, the Pont lake (in the heart of the Auxois region), or the Kir lake (an artificial lake of 37 ha, created in Dijon in 1964 by the canon of the same name). Let us also mention the lake of Chamboux, the reservoir of Panthier and Grosbois, the lake of Chour and Montagny-lès-Beaune, or the lake of Arc-sur-Tille. Finally, let's not forget the canals, including the Burgundy canal which links Migennes (Yonne) to Saint-Jean-de-Losne. A true symbol of the region!
Forests and woods are the pride of the Côte-d'Or
In the Côte-d'Or, wooded areas occupy a large place. The thick forest of Châtillonnais, which extends into Haute-Marne, earned it the label of National Forest Park at the end of 2019. It is the largest in Europe with a perimeter of 240,000 ha of land. The forest is also very present in the Morvan, in the south-west. There, over the years, the deciduous trees (beech and oak) have diminished in favour of faster-growing conifers.
A crossroads of climates
Of course, the climate here is not just a matter of weather: it also refers to a plot of vines. But the weather also occupies our minds! Indeed, the department is located at a crossroads of influences that often collide: oceanic in the north as well as in the western part and in the centre, continental throughout the territory (except in its central part) and Mediterranean in the south-east. As a result, like the landscapes, the climatic conditions vary greatly! Winter is generally long and harsh with frost, snowfall and temperatures often below 0°C. The winter cold is particularly marked on a wide north-south strip crossing the centre of the department as well as on the south-western part of Morvandy. Spring and summer are rather cool (with an average of 20°C in July on the plains north of Dijon), but summers can also be torrid with very pronounced droughts and temperatures that can sometimes flirt with 38°C! As for sunshine, no worries: during the summer of 2018, for example, the Côte-d'Or had 666 hours of sunshine, which is more than... the city of Nice! North of Dijon, however, the summer is less sunny, a climatic phenomenon that explains the disappearance of the vine in this area. The Saône plain (to the south-east) is known for its violent thunderstorms with a rise in hot air from the south. Late frosts, humidity and hail during flowering, and rain during the harvest are also feared. Let's not forget the fog, present and persistent in winter, especially on the eastern side and in the Saône valley, where there are significant temperature differences between the summer highs and winter lows.
