Departments of France

In the context of the political and geographic organization of France and many of its former colonies, a department (, ) is an administrative division roughly analogous to an English or United States county or a Scottish region. The 100 French departments are now grouped into 22 metropolitan and four overseas regions. All regions have identical legal status as integral parts of France. They are subdivided into 342 arrondissements.

General characteristics

In continental France ( metropolitan France, excluding Corsica), the median land area of a department is 5,965 km² (2,303 square miles), which is two-and-a-half times the median land area of a ceremonial county of England, and slightly more than three-and-half times the median land area of a county in the United States. At the 2001 census, the median population of a department in continental France was 511,012 inhabitants, which is 21 times the median population of a U.S. county, but less than two-thirds of the median population of a ceremonial county of England. The chef-lieu de département, department capital or seat of government, normally lies at the geographical centre of the département. This was determined according to the time taken to travel on horseback from the periphery of the département. The goal was for the chef-lieu to be accessible by horseback from any town in the département within 24 hours.

Administrative role

Each département is administered by a conseil général (general council), an assembly elected for six years by universal suffrage, and its executive. Since 1982, the executive is the president of that council (formerly it was headed by the prefect). The French national government is represented in the département by a préfect (prefect) appointed by the national executive (the President or the Prime Minister). The prefect is assisted by one or more sub-prefects based in district centres outside the capital of the département. The center of administration of a département is called a préfecture (prefecture) or chef-lieu de département. Départements are divided into one to seven arrondissements. The capital city of an arrondissement is called the sous-préfecture (subprefecture) or chef-lieu d'arrondissement. The public official in charge is called the sous-préfet (sub-prefect). The départements are further divided into communes, governed by municipal councils. France (as of 1999) has 36,779 communes. Most of the départements have an area of between 4,000 and 8,000 km², and a population between 250,000 and one million. The largest in area is Gironde (10,000 km²), while the smallest is the city of Paris (105 km²). The most populous is Nord (2,550,000) and the least populous Lozère (74,000). See also: List of French departments by population The départements are numbered: their two-digit numbers appear in postal codes, in INSEE codes (including "social security numbers") and on vehicle number-plates. In January 2009 a new number-plate scheme will succeed the latter application (for details see French vehicle registration plates). Initially, the numbers corresponded to the alphabetical order of the names of the départements, but several changed their names, so the correspondence became less exact. There is no number 20, but 2A and 2B instead, for Corsica. Corsican postal codes or addresses in both departments do still start with 20, though. The two-digit code "98" is used by Monaco. Together with the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code FR, the numbers form the ISO 3166-2 country subdivision codes for the metropolitan départements. The overseas départements get two letters for the ISO 3166-2 code, e.g. 971 for Guadeloupe (see table below).

History

Departments were created on 4 March 1790 by the Constituent Assembly to replace the country's former provinces with a more rational structure. They were also designed to deliberately break up France's historical regions in an attempt to erase cultural differences and build a more homogeneous nation. Most departments were named after an area's principal river(s) or other physical features. The number of departments, initially 83, was increased to 130 by 1810 with the territorial gains of the Republic and of the Empire (see Provinces of the Netherlands for the annexed Dutch departments). Following Napoleon's defeats in 1814-1815, the number of departments was reduced to 86. The Congress of Vienna returned France to its pre-war size; the total was 86, as three of the original departments had been split. In 1860, France acquired the Comté de Nice and Savoy, which led to the creation of three new departments. Two were added from the new Savoyard territory, while the department of Alpes-Maritimes was created from Nice and a portion of the Var department. The 89 departments were given numbers based on their alphabetical order. Three departments in Alsace-Lorraine ( Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin, and Moselle) were ceded to the German Empire in 1871, following France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. A small part of the department of Haut-Rhin, called the Territoire de Belfort, was detached from the rest of Alsace-Lorraine and remained French. In 1919, following World War I, France regained Alsace-Lorraine. Territoire de Belfort was not reintegrated into Haut-Rhin, but was instead made a full-status department in 1922, becoming the 90th department of France. Reorganisations of the Paris region (1968) and the division of Corsica (1975) added six more departments, raising the total to one hundred. These include the four overseas departments of Guyane ( French Guiana) in South America, Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Lesser Antilles, and Réunion in the Indian Ocean.

Map and list of departments

French regions and departments

Notes:

1. The number 75 was formerly assigned to Seine
2. The number 78 was formerly assigned to Seine-et-Oise
3. The number 91 was formerly assigned to Alger, in French Algeria
4. The number 92 was formerly assigned to Oran, in French Algeria
5. The number 93 was formerly assigned to Constantine, in French Algeria
6. The number 975 was formerly assigned to Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon
7. The number 976 was formerly assigned to Mayotte
8. The number 977 was formerly assigned to Saint-Barthélémy
9. The number 978 was formerly assigned to Saint-Martin
10. The prefecture of Val-d'Oise was established in Pontoise when the department was created, but moved de facto to the neighbouring commune of Cergy; currently, both form the ville nouvelle of Cergy-Pontoise.
11. The overseas departments are former colonies outside France that now enjoy a status identical to metropolitan France. They are part of France and the European Union, though special EU rules apply to them. Each also constitutes a region.

Former departments

On the current territory of France

Name changes

A few departments have changed names, in most cases, to lose the terms "lower" and "inferior":

French Algeria

Before 1957

1957–1962

In former colonies of France

Napoleonic Empire

There are a number of former departments in territories conquered by France during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire that are now not part of France: Notes:

1. Where a Napoleonic département was composed of parts from more than one country, the nation-state containing the prefecture is listed. Please expand this table to list all countries containing significant parts of the département.
2. Territories that were a part of ] Austrian Netherlands were also a part of
3. The ] Bishopric of Basel was a German Prince-Bishopric, not to be confused with the adjacent Swiss
4. The territories of the were lost to France, becoming the Septinsular Republic, a nominal protectorate of the , from 1800–07. After reverting to France as the Illyrian Provinces, these territories then became a British protectorate, as the
5. Maastricht was a condominium of the ] Dutch Republic and the
6. On 6 June 1805, as a result of the annexation of the ] Ligurian Republic (the puppet successor state to the
7. Before becoming the département of Apennins, the ] Republic of Genoa was converted to a puppet successor state, the
8. Before becoming the département of Arno, the ] Grand Duchy of Tuscany was converted to a puppet successor state, the
9. Before becoming the département of Taro, the ] Duchy of Parma and Piacenza was annexed to the Flag of the Repubblica Cisalpina.svg|22x20px|border|Flag of the Cisalpine Republic]] Cisalpine Republic until 1802, the Flag of the Italian Republic (1802).svg|22x20px|border|Flag of the Napoleonic Italian Republic]] Italian Republic, from 1802 until 1805 and the
10. Rome was known as the until 1810.
11. Before becoming the départements of Bouches-du-Rhin, Bouches-de-l'Escaut, Bouches-de-la-Meuse, Bouches-de-l'Yssel, Ems-Occidental, Frise, Yssel-Supérieur and Zuyderzée, these territories of the ] Dutch Republic were converted to a puppet successor state, the Batavian Republic (1795–1806), then those territories that had not already been annexed (all except the first two départements here), along with the Prussian Ostfriesland Flagge mit Wappen.0.2.svg|22x20px|border|Flag of the County of East Frisia]] County of East Frisia, were converted to another puppet state, the
12. Before becoming the département of Simplon, the ] République des Sept Dizains was converted to a revolutionary République du Valais (16 March 1798) which was swiftly incorporated (1 May 1798) into the puppet
13. In the months before Lippe was formed, the arrondissements of Rees and Münster were part of Yssel-Supérieur, the arrondissement of Steinfurt was part of Bouches-de-l'Yssel and the arrondissement of Neuenhaus was part of Ems-Occidental.

See also: The 130 departments of the Napoleonic Empire