Haute-Normandie

Coastal region of northwest France lying between Basse-Normandie and Picardy and bisected by the River Seine; area 12,317 sq km/4,756 sq mi; population (1999 est) 1,780,200. It comprises the départements of Eure and Seine-Maritime; its administrative centre is Rouen. Other chief towns include Évreux, and St-Saëns; ports include Le Havre, Dieppe, and Fécamp. The area is fertile and has many beech forests. Industries include dairy farming, fishing, and petrochemical, paper, and car manufacture.

The Seine divides the region in two, flowing from the southeast to the northwest near Le Havre. The banks of the Seine are densely populated and highly industrialized, but the northerly parts of the department remain rural and maritime. These areas are characterized by the chalk cliffs of the ‘alabaster coast’, and the forests and hills of internal rural areas such as Pays de Caux, Pays d'Ouche, and Pays Bray. The region is one part of the wider and older region of Normandy, the other section being known as Basse-Normandie. The writer Victor Hugo lived at Villequier, near Caudebec, and the former home and garden of the painter Claude Monet is at Giverny.