a town in the south of France, capital of the department of the Lot, on the high road between Paris and Toulouse, 358 miles S.W. from Paris, and 60 miles north of Toulouse. N. Lat. 44° 27', E. Long. 1° 24'. It stands on the right bank of the river Lot, on a rocky peninsula formed by a bend in the stream, and communicates with the opposite shore by three bridges; one, which is the Pont Valendre, built in the thirteenth century, and surmounted by three massive towers. In the more ancient part of the town the streets are narrow and the houses antique; but in the modern and more elevated quarter there are many handsome buildings, with terraces which command an extensive view. The most remarkable building is the cathedral, occupying the site, if not actually consisting of the remains, of an ancient Roman temple, with recent additions in the Gothic and Byzantine styles. Besides it, there is the theological seminary; the hotel of the prefecture, formerly an episcopal palace; a theatre, a public library, and a monument erected to Fenelon in front of the university, of which he was a student. Cahors is the see of a bishop, and the seat of judicial and commercial tribunals of the first class. Its educational establishments comprise a royal college, a diocesan seminary, and a primary school. The principal articles of manufacture are stoneware, cotton-yarn, woollen stuffs, and paper; and it has a considerable traffic in oil, hemp, flax, hides, truffles, and a strong deeply-coloured wine which is made in the neighbouring districts. Pop. (1851) 12,103. The population of the arrondissement of the same name in 1851 was 118,515.

Cahors is the ancient Divona, afterwards called Civitas Cadurcorum from the Celtic tribe whose capital it was, and still exhibits traces of its greatness during the Roman sway. The most conspicuous remains are those of an immense aqueduct, which conveyed the water to the city from a distance of about 19 miles by a precipitous route along the mountain-sides, and crossed the valley of Larroque-des-arcs on a bridge 180 feet high. There are also remains of baths, a theatre, a marble altar, erected, according to the inscription, in honour of Lucterius Leo, and a celebrated fountain supposed to be the fountain Divona (the fountain of the goddess), and now called Des Chartreux, from the Carthusian convent to which it has been attached.