The Luberon or Luberon Massif (Provençal Occitan: Leberon in classical norm or Leberoun in Mistralian norm), also called Lubéron, has a maximum altitude of 1,256 m and an area of about 600 km². It is composed of three mountain ranges: (from west to east) the Little Luberon, the Big Luberon and the Oriental Luberon, lying in the middle of Provence in the far south of France. The valleys north and south of them contain a number of towns and villages as well as agricultural land.
The total number of inhabitants varies greatly between winter and summer, due to a massive influx of tourists during the warm season.
It is a favourite destination for French high society and British and American visitors because of the pleasant and picturesque towns and villages, comfortable way of life, agricultural wealth, historical and cultural associations (e.g. Samuel Beckett lived in Roussillon during World War II), and hiking trails.
In the 1970s, people came from all over France to "Le Luberon" in search of a communitarian ideal.
The Force de frappe or French strategic nuclear arsenal used to be nearby, underground, on "Le Plateau d'Albion" before being dismantled in the late 1980s. Now, the underground site, where the control of the missiles was, is a public multidisciplinary laboratory of the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, the Low-Noise Underground Laboratory of Rustrel - Pays d'Apt. (http://lsbb.unice.fr).
In the last two decades the Luberon has become known in the English-speaking world especially through a series of books by British author Peter Mayle chronicling his life as an expatriate settled in the Luberon village of Ménerbes. One of Mayle's books was made into a film A Good Year (2006) directed by Ridley Scott, starring Russell Crowe and filmed in the region.
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Luberon is particularly rich in terms of its biological diversity. There are known to be around 1500 species of plants, accounting for 30% of the flora and fauna in France, 17,000 species and sub-species of insects with almost 2300 species of Lepidoptera, or nearly 40% of species living in France, 341 species and subspecies of vertebrate wildlife, 135 species of birds and 21 species of bats or 70% of species present in France. Among the 1500 different species of plants, there are 700 species and sub-species of higher plants and 200 species of lichens.