Parc naturel régional du Livradois-Forez

Extending over Puy-de-Dôme, Haute-Loire and Loire, over more than 320 hectares, Livradois-Forez is one of the largest regional natural parks in France and offers a great diversity of natural environments with a wide range of fauna and flora.

Due to its geographical and environmental characteristics, it has a wide variety of natural environments: peat bogs and peat lakes, mountain heaths of Hautes Chaumes du Forez, beech and fir forests, alluvial forests, dry mounds and hillsides of Limagne, natural hay meadows, rivers and torrents… Through an unexpected detour, it opens onto the infinity of landscapes. It hurtles down in cascading torrents to the Dore, or languishes in the gentleness of the hillsides of Billom and Comté.

A traditional mixed crop and livestock territory, very densely populated in the 19th century, it was strongly affected by the rural exodus and agricultural decline in the 20th century. Today, half of the Livradois-Forez area is made up of vast wooded areas where traditional “gardened high forests” and recent plantations coexist. The development of industrial activities linked to water (textiles, leather, paper, small metallurgy, cutlery) from the 15th century, and their growth until the middle of the 20th century, strongly marked Livradois-Forez and constitute one of its wealth, both economic and cultural.

At your convenience, at your own pace, explore this vast territory. Take care of Livradois-Forez, its fragile nature, its calm, and perhaps you will feel this rare feeling of complicity with a region and its inhabitants that nothing and no one can ever undo, this gift of the most precious good: friendship.

• Valley / valley
• Bog

• Français

• Natural inventory