The Tide Gauge

The Marseille tide gauge belongs to the French government and is managed by the Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN).
It is both a historic monument and a modern sea-level observatory: it's quite rare to have both qualities in the same place.
This historic monument was built at the end of the 19th century to fix the origin of continental French altitudes (altitude 0). This was achieved by means of a device of which only one remains in the world today.
Today, the main scientific interest of the Marseille tide gauge is to help monitor, understand and anticipate one of the many effects of climate change due to human activity: the increasingly rapid rise in mean sea level.

The tide gauge is not currently open to the public, as it has not yet been classified as an establishment open to the public (ERP). It is for this legal reason that the IGN has decided, in 2021, 2022 and 2023, to open it to the public ONLY for the Heritage Days (2 days). Our association's intention is to open more often. We are currently applying for the tide gauge to be classified as an establishment open to the public (ERP).

Les amis du marégraphe de Marseille" association
While we await a visit, we have a number of ways of making the historical, scientific, cultural, environmental and societal assets of the tide gauge better known, for example :
- an increasingly rich website
- an Instagram account
- a Facebook account
- a soap opera about the history of the tide gauge