Departement

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

Administrative role

Each département is administered by a Conseil Général elected for six years, and its executive is, since 1982 headed by the president of that council (formerly it was headed by the préfet ').

The French national government is represented in thedépartement by a préfet appointed by the national executive. Thepréfet is assisted by one or more sous-préfets based in district centres outside the departmental capital.

The capital city of a département bears the title of préfecture. Départements are divided into one to seven arrondissements . The capital city of anarrondissement is called the sous-préfecture . Thecivil servant in charge is the sous-préfet.

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

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 interms 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 populousis Nord (2,550,000) and the least populous Lozère (74,000).

See also: Listof French départements by population

The départements are numbered: their two-digit numbers appear in postalcodes 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 3166-2code.

History

Départements were created on January 15 , 1790 by the ConstituentAssembly to replace the country's former provinces with amore rational structure. They were also designed to deliberately break up France's historical regions in an attempt to erasecultural differences and build a more homogeneous nation. Most départements are named after the area's principal river(s) orother physical features.

The number of départements rose from an initial 83 to 130 by 1810 with the territorialgains 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 thealphabetical 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 ) andthe division of Corsica ( 1975 ) have added afurther seven départements, raising the total to one hundred - including the four overseas départements d'outre-mer (DOM) of Guyane ( French Guiana ) in SouthAmerica , Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean Sea , and Réunion in the Indian Ocean .

Map and list of départements

Notes:

1. The overseas departments are former colonies outside France that now enjoy a status similar to European or metropolitan France. They arepart of France and of the EU . Each of them constitutes a région at the sametime.
2. Beyond these there are also two "overseas territories" (French: territoires d'outre-mer, or TOM) that are part ofFrance but not of the EU . They are: Wallis and Futuna and the French Southern and Antarctic Territories .
3. Furthermore there are two separate special status territories (French: collectivités territoriales), also part ofFrance but not of the EU : Saint-Pierre and Miquelon and Mayotte .
4. At last there are two "overseas country" (French: pays d'outre-mer), also part of France but not of the EU : French Polynesia and New Caledonia . NewCaledonia 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 theNetherlands
• French départements in Algeria
  • 91 Algiers
  • 92 Oran
  • 93 Constantine
• The 130 départements of the Napoleonic Empire