The Brenne regional natural park was created in 1989, and covers 167,200 hectares of the Indre department, with 32,430 inhabitants in 47 communes.
The park is divided into two zones - the north is a flat area with more than a thousand lakes, while the south and west are more rolling countryside, with wooded hills and small fields.
The lakes in the park are almost exclusively man-made, constructed over hundreds of years, some of them dating to Roman times, and now provide a marvellous natural habitat for migrating and resident birds, butterflies, and many unusual plants - often some of the rarest in Europe, including the cistude, a carnivorous fresh-water turtle.
Many of the lakes have been used for hundreds of years for commercial fish-farming.
The park is also crossed by several rivers, including the river Creuse, along which were built numerous medieval castles, abbeys and, of course, mills.
