Chivassese

The Chivassese area has various types of landscapes: from the zones that are scarcely suitable to intensive farming and traditionally grass-growing areas with lines of trees, to those characterised by typical fruit groves and viticulture (erbaluce di Caluso variety) due to greater exposure to pedoclimatic elements, that at times give the area family-run farming economies which have become true and proper income earning farm activities.
Often the traditional grasslands found in the more humid zones, have been replaced by cereal crops rotational cultivation, later transformed into one-crop farming of corn once the irrigation setup and the soil make it possible. Another characteristic sight is that of the fluvial network of the Po and Dora Baltea Rivers, systems of the confluences of the Orco, Malone of the Dora in the Po, including the system of protected areas of the strip of the Po River, with the related natural reserve zone and its valuable naturalistic and landscape features. Unfortunately intensive cultivation of corn especially in the particularly fragile areas, has accentuated the impoverishment of the landscape.
Worthy of note is the complex of the Hunting and Horse breeding territory of the House of Savoy: a structure for horse breeding, connected to the property of the House of Savoy, which comprises the Royal Hunting grounds, the Apertole ranch, the pasture of Santhià and the estate of Desana.

The main inhabited centre is Chivasso, a city which in the medieval ages played a highly central role in the organisation of the territory within the framework of the Marquisate of Monferrato up to 1435, the year of the definitive passage to the Duchy of Savoy, in which a superior administrative role was maintained. The polarity of Chivasso is confirmed by the axes routes and railway lines that start off from here.
Also the castle of Mazzè is very interesting, and is part of the Canavese castles network.

Privileged points of observation identified in the PAYS.DOC “ Good practices for the landscape” created by a virtual observatory of the Mediterranean landscape.