The overseas departments and regions of France ( French : départements et régions d'outre-mer , pronounced [depaʁtəmɑ̃ e ʁeʒjɔ̃ d‿utʁəmɛʁ] ; DROM ) are departments of the French Republic which are outside the continental Europe situated portion of France , known as " metropolitan France ". The distant parts have exactly the same status as mainland France's regions and departments. The French Constitution provides that, in general, French laws and regulations (France's civil code, penal code, administrative law, social laws, tax laws, etc.) apply to French overseas regions the same as in metropolitan France , but can be adapted as needed to suit the region's particular needs. Hence, the local administrations of French overseas regions cannot themselves pass new laws. On occasion referendums are undertaken to re-assess the sentiment in local status.
46-484: Corse-du-Sud ( French pronunciation: [kɔʁs dy syd] ; Corsican: Corsica suttana [ˈkorsiga zutˈtana] , Pumonte [puˈmɔntɛ] or Pumonti [puˈmɔnti] ; English: Southern Corsica ) is (as of 2019) an administrative department of France , consisting of the southern part of the island of Corsica . The corresponding departmental territorial collectivity merged with that of Haute-Corse on 1 January 2018, forming
92-463: A county of the United States . At the 2001 census, the median population of a department in continental France was 511,000 inhabitants, which is 21 times the median population of a United States county, but less than two-thirds of the median population of a ceremonial county of England and Wales. Most of the departments have an area of between 4,000 and 8,000 km (1500 to 3000 sq. mi.), and
138-500: A more uniform division into departments ( département ) and districts in late 1789. The process began on 4 August 1789 with the elimination of provincial privileges, and a 22 December 1789 decree (with letters patent in January 1790) provided for the termination of the provincial governments. The modern department system, as all-purpose units of the government, was decreed on 26 February 1790 (with letters patent on 4 March 1790) by
184-513: A population between 320,000 and 1 million. The largest in area is Gironde (10,000 km (3,900 sq mi).), while the smallest is the city of Paris (105 km (41 sq mi).). 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
230-405: A president. Their main areas of responsibility include the management of a number of social and welfare allowances, of junior high school ( collège ) buildings and technical staff, and local roads and school and rural buses, and a contribution to municipal infrastructures. Local services of the state administration are traditionally organised at departmental level, where the prefect represents
276-522: A territory in 1848. Since 1982, following the French government 's policy of decentralisation , overseas departments have elected regional councils with powers similar to those of the regions of metropolitan France. As a result of a constitutional revision that occurred in 2003, these regions are now to be called "overseas regions"; indeed, the new wording of the Constitution gives no precedence to
322-399: A three-digit number. The number is used, for example, in the postal code and was until recently used for all vehicle registration plates . Residents commonly use the numbers to refer to their own department or a neighbouring one, for example inhabitants of Loiret may refer to their department as "the 45". More distant departments are generally referred to by their names, as few people know
368-481: Is commonly associated, though not all are officially recognised or used. Unlike the rest of the French possessions in Africa , Algeria was divided into departments just like Corsica or Normandy from 1848 until its independence in 1962. These departments were supposed to be "assimilated" or "integrated" to France sometime in the future. There are a number of former departments in territories conquered by France during
414-411: Is known as the prefecture ( préfecture ) or chef-lieu de département and is generally a town 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 on horseback from any town in the department within 24 hours. The prefecture
460-515: Is mountainous with many beautiful beaches. The most populous commune is Ajaccio , the prefecture. As of 2019, there are 3 communes with more than 4,000 inhabitants: The people living in Corse-du-Sud are called Suttanacci . According to an INSEE study, in the period 2020-2021 9.1% of the population were immigrants and 11.3% were descendants of immigrants (at least one parent). [1] The current prefect of Corse-du-Sud (and also prefect of
506-562: 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 may be divided into arrondissements . The capital of an arrondissement is called a subprefecture ( sous-préfecture ) or chef-lieu d'arrondissement . Each department is administered by a departmental council ( conseil départemental ), an assembly elected for six years by universal suffrage , with
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#1732771999393552-654: The Ponts et Chaussées (Bridges and Highways) infrastructure administration. Before the French Revolution , France gained territory gradually through the annexation of a mosaic of independent entities. By the end of the Ancien Régime it was organised into provinces . During the Revolution they were dissolved, partly in order to weaken old loyalties. The National Constituent Assembly decided to create
598-671: The 1823 French intervention ending the trienio liberal ) and the 1833 territorial division of Spain , which forms the basis of the present day Provinces of Spain with minor modifications, are also based on the French model of departments of roughly equal size. Most French departments are assigned a two-digit number, the Official Geographical Code, allocated by the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques ( Insée ). Overseas departments have
644-592: The French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire that are now not part of France: Dutch Republic : Holy Roman Empire : Dutch Republic : Holy Roman Empire : Dutch Republic : Holy Roman Empire : Holy Roman Empire : Electorate of the Palatinate Electorate of the Palatinate Kingdom of Prussia : Imperial Free City of Wesel (after 1805) Notes for Table 7: Overseas department and region Since March 2011,
690-474: The ISO 3166-2 country subdivision codes for the metropolitan departments. The overseas departments have three digits. Originally, the relationship between the departments and the central government was left somewhat ambiguous. While citizens in each department elected their own officials, the local governments were subordinated to the central government, becoming instruments of national integration. By 1793, however,
736-597: The National Constituent Assembly . Their boundaries served two purposes: 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 . Savoy , during its temporary occupation, became the department of Mont-Blanc . The provinces continued to exist administratively until 21 September 1791. The number of departments, initially 83, had been increased to 130 by 1809 with
782-661: The President of the Departmental Council as executive of the department. Before 1982, the chief executive of the department was the prefect ( préfet ), who represents the Government of France in each department and is appointed by the President of the French Republic . The prefect is assisted by one or more sub-prefects ( sous-préfet ) based in the subprefectures of the department. Since 1982,
828-586: The Territoire de Belfort ; the remaining parts of Meurthe and Moselle were merged into a new Meurthe-et-Moselle department. 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. Likewise the Lorraine departments were not changed back to their original boundaries, and a new Moselle department
874-675: 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. In January 2008, the Attali Commission recommended that the departmental level of government should be eliminated within ten years. Nevertheless,
920-626: The administrative divisions of France , the department ( French : département , pronounced [depaʁtəmɑ̃] ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities "), between the administrative regions and the communes . There are ninety-six departments in metropolitan France , with an additional five overseas departments , which are also classified as overseas regions. Departments are further subdivided into 333 arrondissements and 2,054 cantons (as of 2023). These last two levels of government have no political autonomy, instead serving as
966-617: The euro as their currency. The overseas departments and regions are not the same as the overseas collectivities , which have a semi-autonomous status. Guadeloupe and Réunion each have separate departmental and regional councils, while in Mayotte, Guiana and Martinique, the two layers of government are consolidated so one body wields both sets of powers. The overseas departments acquired these additional powers in 1982, when France's decentralisation policy dictated that they be given elected regional councils and other regional powers; however,
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#17327719993931012-415: The single territorial collectivity of Corsica, with territorial elections coinciding with the dissolution of the separate council. Although its administrative powers were ceded to the new territorial collectivity, it continues to remain an administrative department in its own right. In 2019, it had a population of 158,507. The department was formed on 1 January 1976, when the single department of Corsica
1058-412: The Balladur Committee has not retained this proposition and does not advocate the disappearance of the departments, but simply "favors the voluntary grouping of departments", which it suggests also for the regions, with the aim of reducing the number of regions to 15. This committee advocates, on the contrary, the suppression of the cantons. Each department has a coat of arms and a flag with which it
1104-836: The French from these islands, and though France regained them via the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, the three departments were not revived. Under the 1947 Constitution of the Fourth Republic , the French colonies of Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean ; French Guiana in South America ; and Réunion in the Indian Ocean were defined as overseas departments, joining Algeria in North Africa , which had previously been divided into three departments and
1150-843: The Republic (all created in 1946) – French Guiana , Guadeloupe , Martinique and Réunion – the total number of departments in the French Republic had become 101. In 2015 the Urban Community of Lyon was split from Rhône to form the Métropole de Lyon , a sui generis entity, with the powers of both an intercommunality and those of a department on its territory, formally classified as a "territorial collectivity with particular status" ( French : collectivité territoriale à statut particulier ) and as such not belonging to any department. As of 2019 Corse-du-Sud and Haute-Corse are still administrative departments, although they no longer have
1196-423: The administrative basis for the local organisation of police, fire departments as well as, in certain cases, elections. Each department is administered by an elected body called a departmental council ( sg. conseil départemental , pl. conseils départementaux ). From 1800 to April 2015, these were called general councils ( sg. conseil général , pl. conseils généraux ). Each council has
1242-529: The collectivity of Corsica) is Amaury de Saint-Quentin, who took office on 7 March 2022. The former department enjoys the mild and hot climate of Mediterranean Islands, and therefore attracts a lot of tourists. Its perhaps largest tourist attraction is the city of Bonifacio , part of which is built upon a huge cliff. But inside mountains are beautiful as well, especially the Aiguilles de Bavella , some naked, needle-like rocks. Departments of France In
1288-414: The country's capital city, is a commune as well as a department. In continental France ( metropolitan France , excluding Corsica ), the median land area of a department is 5,965 km (2,303 sq mi), which is two-and-a-half times the median land area of the ceremonial counties of England and the preserved counties of Wales and slightly more than three-and-half times the median land area of
1334-620: The five overseas departments and regions of France are: France 's earliest, short-lived attempt at setting up overseas departments was after Napoleon 's conquest of the Republic of Venice in 1797, when the hitherto Venetian Ionian Islands fell to the French Directory and were organised as the departments of Mer-Égée , Ithaque and Corcyre . In 1798, the Russian Admiral Fyodor Ushakov evicted
1380-620: The government; however, regions have gained importance since the 2000s, with some department-level services merged into region-level services. The departments were created in 1790 as a rational replacement of Ancien Régime provinces with a view to strengthen national unity; the title "department" is used to mean a part of a larger whole. Almost all of them were named after physical geographical features (rivers, mountains, or coasts), rather than after historical or cultural territories, which could have their own loyalties, or after their own administrative seats. The division of France into departments
1426-405: The islands. The overseas collectivity of Mayotte held a referendum on 29 March 2009. Of the votes, 95% were in favor of becoming an overseas department. Mayotte became an overseas department on 31 March 2011. Each overseas department is the sole department in its own overseas region ( French : région d'outre-mer ) with powers identical to the regions of metropolitan France. Because of
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1472-659: 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 the alphabetical order of their names. The department of Bas-Rhin and parts of Meurthe , Moselle , Vosges and 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
1518-407: The numbers corresponded to the alphabetical order of the names of the departments, but several changed their names and some have been divided, so the correspondence became less exact. Alphanumeric codes 2A and 2B were used for Corsica while it was split but it has since reverted to 20. The two-digit code "98" is used by Monaco . Together with the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code FR, the numbers form
1564-442: The numbers of all the departments. In 2014, President François Hollande proposed abolishing departmental councils by 2020, which would have maintained the departments as administrative divisions, and transferring their powers to other levels of governance. This reform project has since been scrapped. The first French territorial departments were proposed in 1665 by Marc-René d'Argenson to serve as administrative areas purely for
1610-633: The one-to-one correspondence, informal usage does not distinguish the two, and the French media use the term département d'outre-mer ( DOM ) almost exclusively. As integral parts of the French republic and the European Union , overseas departments are represented in the National Assembly , Senate , and Economic and Social Council . The areas also vote to elect members of the European Parliament (MEP), and also use
1656-482: The prefect retains only the powers that are not delegated to the department councils. In practice, their role has been largely limited to preventing local policy from conflicting with national policy. The departments are further divided into communes , governed by municipal councils . As of 2013, there were 36,681 communes in France. In the overseas territories , some communes play a role at departmental level. Paris ,
1702-464: The revolutionary government had turned the departments into transmission belts for policies enacted in Paris. With few exceptions, the departments had this role until the early 1960s. These maps cannot be used as a useful resource of voter preferences, because Departmental Councils are elected on a two-round system, which drastically limits the chances of fringe parties, if they are not supported on one of
1748-428: The status of departmental " territorial collectivities ": region and department functions have been managed by a " single territorial collectivity " since 2018. Despite the intention to avoid the old nomenclature, often the names of pre-1790 provinces remained in use. For example, the name of Berry , though no longer having an official status, remains in widespread use in daily life. The departmental seat of government
1794-557: The term "overseas region" was only introduced with the French constitutional amendment of 28 March 2003. Due to distance from the EU and local proximity some areas participate in economic fora and organizations of mutual interest geographically close-by. Such as Martinique and Guadeloupe taking part in both the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and Association of Caribbean States (ACS); or French Polynesia taking part in
1840-444: The terms "overseas department" or "overseas region", though the latter is still virtually unused by the French media. The overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon was an overseas department from 1976 to 1985. All five of France's overseas departments have between 200,000 and 1,000,000 people each, whereas Saint Pierre and Miquelon has only about 6,000, and the smaller collectivity unit therefore seemed more appropriate for
1886-593: The territorial gains of the Republic and of the First French Empire . Following the defeats of Napoleon in 1814–1815 the Congress of Vienna returned France to its pre-war size and the number of departments was reduced to 86 (three of the original departments having 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
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1932-455: The two rounds by a moderate party. After the 1992 election, the left had a majority in only 21 of the 100 departments; after the 2011 election, the left dominated 61 of the 100 departments. (Mayotte only became a department after the election.) Key to the parties: The 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
1978-628: Was a major setback for the French Minister of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy , who had hoped to use Corsica as the first step in his decentralization programme. On 1 January 2018, Corse-du-Sud's administrative powers were partly ceded to the new territorial collectivity of Corsica. The department is surrounded on three sides by the Mediterranean Sea and on the north by the department of Haute-Corse . The entire island of Corsica
2024-490: Was a project particularly identified with the French revolutionary leader the Abbé Sieyès , although it had already been frequently discussed and written about by many politicians and thinkers. The earliest known suggestion of it is from 1665 in the writings of d'Argenson . They have inspired similar divisions in many countries, some of them former French colonies. The 1822 territorial division of Spain (reverted due to
2070-472: Was created in the regained territory, with slightly different boundaries from the pre-war department of the same name. The reorganisation of Île-de-France in 1968 and the division of Corsica in 1975 added six more departments, raising the total in Metropolitan France to 96. By 2011, when the overseas collectivity of Mayotte became a department, joining the earlier overseas departments of
2116-519: Was divided into Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud. Its boundaries corresponded to the former department of Liamone , which existed from 1793 to 1811. On 6 February 1998, Corse-du-Sud's prefect Claude Érignac was assassinated in Ajaccio . The Corsican nationalist Yvan Colonna was eventually convicted of the crime. On 6 July 2003 a referendum rejected increased autonomy by a small majority, with 50.98 percent voting against and 49.02 percent for. This
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