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( Po River)
The Po (Latin Padus, Italian Po, Ligurian Bo, Greek Eridanus) is a river that flows 652 km(405 miles) eastward across northern Italy, from Monviso (in the Cottian Alps) to the Adriatic Sea near Venice. It has a drainage area of 71,000&_160;km² and is the longest river in Italy. It goes through many important Italian towns, including Turin (Torino) and (indirectly) Milan (Milano), in Lombardy. It is connected to Milan through a net of channels called navigli, which Leonardo da Vinci helped design. Near the end of its course, it creates a wide delta (with hundreds of small channels and five main ones, called Po di Maestra, Po della Pila, Po delle Tolle, Po di Gnocca and Po di Goro) at the southern part of which is Comacchio, an area famous for eels. The Po valley corresponds to the Roman Cisalpine Gaul, divided in Cispadane Gaul (South of the Po) and Transpadane Gaul (North of the Po). The vast valley around the Po is called the Padan plain (it Pianura Padana) and is so efficiently connected by the river that the whole valley became the main industrial area of the country. This river is subject to the authority of a special authority, the Magistrato delle Acque. The main products of the farms around the river are cereals.
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