The Cher (Occitan: Char) is a river in central France, left tributary to the river Loire. Its source is in the Creuse département, north-east of Crocq. It joins the river Loire in Villandry, west of Tours.
The river suffered a devastating flood in 1940, which damaged Château de Chenonceau, which spans the river, and other structures along the banks.
Départements and towns along the river:
Main tributaries are, from spring to mouth (L: left / R: right):
It owes its name to the pre-Indo-European root kʰar 'stone'.
A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including stream, creek, brook, rivulet, run, tributary and rill. There are no official definitions for generic terms, such as river, as applied to geographic features, although in some countries or communities a stream may be defined by its size. Many names for small rivers are specific to geographic location; one example is "burn" in Scotland and northeast England. Sometimes a river is said to be larger than a creek, but this is not always the case, because of vagueness in the language.
Rivers are part of the hydrological cycle. Water within a river is generally collected from precipitation through a drainage basin from surface runoff and other sources such as groundwater recharge, springs, and the release of stored water in natural ice and snowpacks (e.g., from glaciers). Potamology is the scientific study of rivers while limnology is the study of inland waters in general.