Département

The départements (or departments) are administrative units of France, roughly analogous to British counties and now grouped into 22 metropolitan and four overseas régionss. They are subdivided into 342 arrondissements. Départements are also found in Côte d'Ivoire.

Table of contents

1 Administrative role 2 History 3 Map and list of départements 4 Former départements

Administrative role

Each département is administered by a Conseil Général elected for six years, and by a préfet appointed by the French government and assisted by one or more sous-préfets based in district centres outside the departmental capital. An administrative reform in 1982 transferred some of the préfet's powers to the president of the Conseil Général.

The capital city of a département bears the title of préfecture. Départements are divided into one to five arrondissements. The capital city of an arrondissement is called the sous-préfecture. The civil servant in charge is the sous-préfet.

The départements sub-divide into communes, governed by municipal councils. France (as of 1999) had 36,779 communes.

Most of the départements have an area of around 4,000-8,000 km² and a population between 250,000 and a million. The largest in terms of area is Gironde (10,000 km²) and the smallest the city of Paris (105 km² excluding the suburbs, now organised in adjacent départements). The most populous is Nord (2,550,000) and the least populous Lozère (74,000).

See also: List of French départements by population

The départements are numbered: their two-digit numbers appear in postal codes and on car number-plates. Note that there is no number 20, but 2A and 2B instead. Note also that the two-digit code "98" is used by Monaco. Together with the ISO 3166-1 country code FR the numbers form the ISO 3166-2 country subdivision codes for the metropolitain departments. The overseas departments get two letters for the ISO 3166-2 code.

History

Départements were created on January 15, 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 départements are named after the area's principal river(s) or other physical features.

The number of départements rose from an initial 83 to 130 by 1810 with the territorial gains of the Republic and of the Empire (see Provinces of the Netherlands for the annexed Dutch departements), but they were reduced again to 86 with Napoleon I's defeat in 1814-1815. Three more were added with the acquisition of Nice and Savoy in 1860. The numbering was estabished on the alphabetical order of those 89 départements.

Three départements in Alsace-Lorraine which had been ceded to Germany in 1871 - (Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin, and Moselle) - re-joined France in 1919.

Reorganisations of the Paris region (1968) and the division of Corsica (1975) have added a further seven départements, raising the total to one hundred - including the four overseas départements d'outre-mer (DOM) of Guyane (French Guiana) in South America, Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean Sea, and Réunion in the Indian Ocean.

Map and list of départements

French régions and départements

Number	Département	Préfecture
01	Ain	Bourg-en-Bresse
02	Aisne	Laon
03	Allier	Moulins
04	Alpes-de-Haute-Provence	Digne
05	Hautes-Alpes	Gap
06	Alpes-Maritimes	Nice
07	Ardèche	Privas
08	Ardennes	Charleville-Mézières
09	Ariège	Foix
10	Aube	Troyes
11	Aude	Carcassonne
12	Aveyron	Rodez
13	Bouches-du-Rhône	Marseille
14	Calvados	Caen
15	Cantal	Aurillac
16	Charente	Angoulême
17	Charente-Maritime	La Rochelle
18	Cher	Bourges
19	Corrèze	Tulle
2A	Corse-du-Sud	Ajaccio
2B	Haute-Corse	Bastia
21	Côte-d'Or	Dijon
22	Côtes-d'Armor	Saint-Brieuc
23	Creuse	Guéret
24	Dordogne	Périgueux
25	Doubs	Besançon
26	Drôme	Valence
27	Eure	Evreux
28	Eure-et-Loir	Chartres
29	Finistère	Quimper
30	Gard	Nîmes
31	Haute-Garonne	Toulouse
32	Gers	Auch
33	Gironde	Bordeaux
34	Hérault	Montpellier
35	Ille-et-Vilaine	Rennes
36	Indre	Châteauroux
37	Indre-et-Loire	Tours
38	Isère	Grenoble
39	Jura	Lons-le-Saunier
40	Landes	Mont-de-Marsan
41	Loir-et-Cher	Blois
42	Loire	Saint-Etienne
43	Haute-Loire	Le Puy
44	Loire-Atlantique	Nantes
45	Loiret	Orléans
46	Lot	Cahors
47	Lot-et-Garonne	Agen
48	Lozère	Mende
49	Maine-et-Loire	Angers
50	Manche	Saint-Lô
51	Marne	Châlons-en-Champagne
52	Haute-Marne	Chaumont
53	Mayenne	Laval
54	Meurthe-et-Moselle	Nancy
55	Meuse	Bar-le-Duc
56	Morbihan	Vannes
57	Moselle	Metz
58	Nièvre	Nevers
59	Nord	Lille
60	Oise	Beauvais
61	Orne	Alençon
62	Pas-de-Calais	Arras
63	Puy-de-Dôme	Clermont-Ferrand
64	Pyrénées-Atlantiques	Pau
65	Hautes-Pyrénées	Tarbes
66	Pyrénées-Orientales	Perpignan
67	Bas-Rhin	Strasbourg
68	Haut-Rhin	Colmar
69	Rhône	Lyon
70	Haute-Saône	Vesoul
71	Saône-et-Loire	Mâcon
72	Sarthe	Le Mans
73	Savoie	Chambéry
74	Haute-Savoie	Annecy
75	Paris	Paris
76	Seine-Maritime	Rouen
77	Seine-et-Marne	Melun
78	Yvelines	Versailles
79	Deux-Sèvres	Niort
80	Somme	Amiens
81	Tarn	Albi
82	Tarn-et-Garonne	Montauban
83	Var	Toulon
84	Vaucluse	Avignon
85	Vendée	La Roche-sur-Yon
86	Vienne	Poitiers
87	Haute-Vienne	Limoges
88	Vosges	Epinal
89	Yonne	Auxerre
90	Territoire-de-Belfort	Belfort
91	Essonne	Evry
92	Hauts-de-Seine	Nanterre
93	Seine-Saint-Denis	Bobigny
94	Val-de-Marne	Créteil
95	Val-d'Oise	Pontoise
971	Guadeloupe 1	Basse-Terre
972	Martinique 1	Fort-de-France
973	Guyane 1	Cayenne
974	La Réunion 1	Saint-Denis
The following are not départments (see notes):
986	Wallis and Futuna 2	Mata-Utu
987	French Polynesia2	Papeete
975	Saint Pierre and Miquelon3	Saint Pierre
976	Mayotte3	Mamoutzou
988	New Caledonia 3	Nouméa

Notes:

1. The overseas departments are former colonies outside France that now enjoy a status similar to European or metropolitan France. They are part of France and of the EU. Each of them constitutes a région at the same time.
2. Beyond these there are also three "overseas territories" (French: territoires d'outre-mer, or TOM) that are part of France but not of the EU. They are: French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna and the French Southern and Antarctic Territories.
3. Furthermore there are three separate special status territories (French: collectivités territorialles), also part of France but not of the EU: Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Mayotte and New Caledonia. New Caledonia used to be a TOM.

Finally, France maintains control over a number of small islands in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.

Former départements

(incomplete list)

• Seine
• Seine-et-Oise
• French départements in the Netherlands
• French départements in Algeria
  • 91 Algiers
  • 92 Oran
  • 93 Constantine
• The 130 départements of the Napoleonic Empire

See also: Administrative divisions of France