The production of huge amounts of tobacco and grains helped the region prosper throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries despite the damage caused by phylloxera in viticulture. Gabarres took the produce to the great port of Bordeaux on the Garonne river into which the Dordogne flows.

During WW2 France was defeated by the Germans and split into two parts - the Occupied Zone in the North and West and the so-called Free Zone in the Centre and South which contained Dordogne and Quercy. This was known as Vichy France and was in fact run by a puppet regime, set up by the Nazis, until 1944.

Nonetheless, it was the development of an extremely successful tourist industry, initially due to the discovery of pre-historic sites at Lascaux and Les Eyzies which energised the whole region and today the Dordogne is extremely popular, particularly with visitors from the rest of Europe and North America.