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Digoin (Municipality, Saône-et-Loire, France)

Flag of Digoin - Image by Olivier Touzeau, 11 June 2021

Presentation of Digoin
Flag of Digoin

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Presentation of Digoin

The municipality of Digoin (7,741 inhabitants in 2019; 3,472 ha) is located 100 km south-west of Beaune, in he Communanuté de communes du Grand Charolais.

Digoin thrived for several centuries around the strand on which was built a port for navigation on river Loire river. Wine from Mâconnais and Chalonnais, as well as Morvan wood and freestone wasc exported the valley of Loire Valley and Paris.
At the end of the 18th century, the States of Burgundy proceeded to the boring of the Charolais canal (today Central Canal), which connects the Saône to the Loire. The canal became navigable in 1793, which intensified river trnasport on the Loire. The creation of the Roanne to Digoin Canal and of the Lateral Canal to the Loire (both 1838) gradually hampered navigation on the Loire, which declined throughout the second half of the 19th century. A freestone canal bridge, 243 meters long (eleven arches) allows the Lateral Canal to the Loire to cross the latter in order to connect 4 kilometers further, to the Central Canal. At the end of the Second Empire, the navigable channel of Arroux was opened; it carries, thanks to a metal canal-bridge, the waters of the Arroux to supply the Lateral Canal.

Olivier Touzeau, 11 June 2021

Flag of Digoin

The flag of Digoin (photo) is white with the municipal logo.

The logo features the Digoin navigable aqueduct (water bridge) built from 1834 to 1839. Designed by engineer Pierre-Alexandre-Adolphe Jullien (1803-1873; subsequently a pioneer in the development of French railways), the bridge is of 243 m in length. It is composed of 11 arches of 16 m in length, supported by 11 pillars of 9 m in width, anchored 3 m under the river's bottom. The bridge ends with a lock that connects the Central Canal to the Lateral Canal to the Loire and the Roanne to Dijon Canal.
Of 6 m in width and 2.30 m in depth, the Digoin aqueduct was enlarged in 1870 and revamped in 1890 when all French canals were standardized to the Freycinet gauge (European Inland Waterways class I gauge).
The local historian Paul Chaussard reports that during the inauguration of the aqueduct several barges were anchored to offer a banquet to the officials ... although stationing on a navigable aqueduct was (and still is) strictly prohibited.
[Croisière Digoin]

Olivier Touzeau & Ivan Sache, 19 September 2021