However it was not until the Middle Ages that local inhabitants built various castles and other fortifications to enable them to withstand a series of invasions of Normans, Burgundians, the English and others.

During that period, kings and financiers competed to build castles and elegant abodes which now form an important part of the French national heritage.

The department's constriction in its centre and the maximum stretching out in its surface area beyond the Loir on the North and the Cher on the South is due to these tribulations.

( to learn more about it, go on to "France’s occupation at the end of the First Empire") The poet Pierre de Ronsard, the inventor Denis Papin, and the historian Augustin Thierry come from here.

Other well-known people are also associated with this department, such as François the First, Gaston d’Orleans, the Marshall Maunoury, and the abbot Gregoire (Bishop of Blois, elected at the Constituante).

In the artistic domain, there is the compositor Antoine Boesset (1587–1643), musician in the Louis XII[4] de France's court, who was the head of the Music of the King's Bedroom from 1623 to 1643.

An axe lively and dynamic, brings Blois closer (the department's administrative center) to both the urban conglomerations near it: Orleans and Tours.

Adjacent departments are Eure-et-Loir to the north, Loiret to the north-east, Cher to the south-east, Indre to the south, Indre-et-Loire to the south-west, and Sarthe to the west.

The line of the river Loire traverses the land, ensuring easy communication between its own capital, Blois, and the vibrant cultural and commercial centres of Tours to the west and the fringes of the Seine-Paris basin at Orléans to the east.