Today, it is hard to imagine that one of Europe’s largest forests was once an expanse of marshes, shifting sand dunes and waterlogged land where farming was difficult, and settlements were scattered. In the middle of the nineteenth century, French Emperor Napoleon III backed an ambitious plan that reshaped the landscape of south-western France over several decades. The initiative gradually transformed much of the region into the Forest of Landes, which continues to shape the area's identity nearly 170 years later.
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