LAVAL, an arrondissement of the department of the Mayenne, in France, extending over 715 square miles. It is divided into nine cantons and ninety-three communes, and contains a population of 108,600 persons. The chief place is the city of the same name, which is also the capital of the department. It is finely situated on both sides of the Mayenne, but is ill built, with narrow and crooked streets and antique houses, and only agreeable from the walks that surround it. It contains 3520 houses, with 15,500 inhabitants, who are chiefly employed in making linens, which,
under the name toiles de Laval, have great celebrity throughout the kingdom. There are also some serges and thin stuffs of worsted made. Long. 0. 52. W. Lat. 48. 4. N.