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The departments of France (French: département, pronounced: [depaʁtǝmɑ̃]) and many of its former colonies are administrative divisions, roughly analogous to the districts of England. The 100 French departments are grouped into 22 metropolitan and four overseas regions, all of which have identical legal status as integral parts of France. The departments are subdivided into 342 arrondissements, which in turn, are divided into cantons. Each canton consists of a small number of communes. In the overseas territories, some of the communes play a role at departmental level.
[edit] HistoryMain article: Territorial formation of France   Before the French Revolution, France accumulated territory gradually through the annexation of a mosaic of more or less independent entities. By the close of the Ancien Régime it was organised into provinces. During the period of the Revolution, these were dissolved, partly in order to weaken old loyalties. Departments were created on 4 March 1790 by the National Constituent Assembly to replace the provinces with what the Assembly deemed a more rational structure. They were designed to deliberately break up France's historical regions in an attempt to erase cultural differences and build a more homogeneous nation. The old nomenclature was carefully avoided in naming the new departments. Most were named after an area's principal river or other physical features. Even Paris was in the department of Seine. The number of departments, initially 83, was increased to 130 by 1810 with the territorial gains of the Republic and of the First French Empire (see Provinces of the Netherlands for the annexed Dutch departments). Following Napoleon's defeats in 1814-1815, the Congress of Vienna returned France to its pre-war size; the number of departments was reduced to 86, as three of the original departments had been split. In 1860, France acquired the County of 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. The departments of Moselle, Bas-Rhin, and most of Haut-Rhin were ceded to the German Empire in 1871, following France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. A small part of Haut-Rhin however remained French, and became known as the Territoire de Belfort. When France regained the ceded departments after World War I, the Territoire de Belfort was not reintegrated into Haut-Rhin. In 1922, it became France's 90th department. The reorganisation of ((lower France)) (1968) and the division of Corsica (1975) added six more departments, raising the total to ninety six. Finally there are the four overseas departments of French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Réunion. [edit] General characteristicsMain article: Administrative divisions of France See also: List of French departments by population   The departmental seat of government is called the prefecture (préfecture) or chef-lieu de department and is generally a city of some importance roughly at the geographical centre of the department. This was determined according to the time taken to travel on horseback from the periphery of the department. The goal was for the prefecture to be accessible by horseback from any town in the department within 24 hours. The prefecture is not necessarily the largest city in the department; for instance, in Saône-et-Loire department the capital is Mâcon, but the largest city is Chalon-sur-Saône. Departments are divided into one or more arrondissements. The capital of an arrondissement is called a subprefecture (sous-préfecture) or chef-lieu d'arrondissement. Each department is administered by a general council (conseil général), an assembly elected for six years by universal suffrage, with the president of the council as executive of the department. Before 1982, the excutive of a department was the prefect (préfet) who represents the Government of France in each department and is appointed the President of France. The prefect is assisted by one or more sub-prefects (sous-préfet) based in the subprefectures of the department. The departments are further divided into communes, governed by municipal councils. As of 1999, there were 36,779 communes in France. In continental France (metropolitan France, excluding Corsica), the median land area of a department is 5,965 km2 (2,303 sq mi), 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 of 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. Most of the departments have an area of between 4,000 and 8,000 km², and a population between 250,000 and 1 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 is Lozère (74,000). The departments are numbered: their two-digit numbers appear in postal codes, in INSEE codes (including "social security numbers") and on vehicle number-plates. Initially, the numbers corresponded to the alphabetical order of the names of the departments, 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 departments. The overseas departments get two letters for the ISO 3166-2 code, e.g. 971 for Guadeloupe (see table below). [edit] Party-political preferences
Key to the parties:
[edit] The futureThe removal of one or more levels of local government has been discussed for some years; in particular, the option of removing the departmental level. Frédéric Lefebvre, spokesman for the UMP, said in December 2008, that the fusion of the departments with the regions was a matter to be dealt with soon. This was soon refuted by Édouard Balladur and Gérard Longuet, members of the Committee for the reform of local authorities, known as the Balladur Committee.[1] In January 2008, the "Commission for freeing French development", known as the Attali Commission, recommended that the departmental level of government should be eliminated within ten years.[2] Nevertheless, the "Committee for the reform of local authorities", known as the Balladur Committee has not retained this proposition and does not advocate the disappearance of the 100 departments, but simply "favours the voluntary grouping of departments", which it suggests also for the regions, with the aim of bring the number of the latter down to fifteen.[3] This committee advocates on the contrary, the suppression of the cantons.[3] The debate on the reform of local authorities finds an echo in that of retaining the departmental numbers in French vehicle registration numbers. Since April 2009, a departmental number is still included but it is now one chosen by the vehicle owner and not necessarily the place of residence. Also, the number of the department is automatically accompanied on the number plate, by the logo of the region in which the department lies. [edit] Maps and tables[edit] Former departments on the current territory of France
[edit] French Algeria
[edit] Former colonies of France
[edit] Napoleonic EmpireThere 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 for Table 7:
[edit] References
[edit] See also
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