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51-562: Loir-et-Cher ( / ˌ l w ɑː r eɪ ˈ ʃ ɛ ə r / LWAR ay SHAIR , French: [lwaʁ e ʃɛʁ] ) is a department in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France . Its name is originated from two rivers which cross it, the Loir in its northern part and the Cher in its southern part. Its prefecture is Blois . The INSEE and La Poste gave it the number 41. It had

102-463: 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

153-929: A Berry's plot (left bank of the Selles en Berry's Cher which becomes Selles sur Cher, to Saint-Aignan). The department's constriction in its centre and the maximum stretching out in its surface area beyond the Loir on the North and the Cher on the South is due to these tribulations. After the victory of the Coalises during the Waterloo's battle (18 June 1815), the Prussian's troops occupied the department from June 1815 to November 1818. ( to learn more about it, go on to "France’s occupation at

204-500: 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

255-513: 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

306-536: A population of 329,470 in 2019. The department of Loir-et-Cher covers a territory which had a substantial population during the prehistoric period. However it was not until the Middle Ages that local inhabitants built various castles and other fortifications to enable them to withstand a series of invasions of Normans , Burgundians , the English and others. The economy is quite flourishing: there are shops in

357-405: 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

408-399: 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

459-533: 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

510-727: Is in the center of the Centre region and near the Paris basin. An axe lively and dynamic, brings Blois closer (the department's administrative center) to both the urban conglomerations near it: Orleans and Tours. Located on the boundaries of the Perche, the Beauce, the Sologne and the Touraine, it finds its territorial identity in the diversity of its geography and its landscapes. Cut in its middle by

561-411: 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

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612-562: 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

663-654: 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

714-671: 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

765-493: The Cher department). The name was criticised as being too dull and nondescript. Proposed names for the region included Val de Loire after the Loire Valley (the main feature of the region) or Cœur de Loire (Heart of Loire). On 17 January 2015, as part of the reorganisation of French regions, the region's official name was changed to Centre-Val de Loire . Val de Loire is associated with positive images of

816-600: 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: Centre-Val de Loire Like many current regions of France,

867-474: 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,

918-597: 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

969-661: 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,

1020-586: 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

1071-675: 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,

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1122-412: 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

1173-513: The Departmental Council is Philippe Gouet ( UDI ), elected in July 2021. See also the Results of the 2024 French legislative election . Loir-et-Cher has an important number of historic châteaux, including the following: Departments of France In the administrative divisions of France , the department ( French : département , pronounced [depaʁtəmɑ̃] ) is one of

1224-567: The General Estates convened in Blois. L’Orléanais, le Berry, la Touraine, le Perche et le Maine occupied le Loir-et-Cher and its provinces in 1790. The Loir-et-Cher's birth as a department was very difficult and laborious. On 29 September 1789, the constitution's advisory board made a report in which he wanted to attribute one of the 80 departments to Blois. However, some cities and canton capitals disagreed, such as Tours and Orleans. Inside of

1275-538: The Loire Valley, such as the châteaux , the gentle and refined lifestyle, wine, as well as the mild and temperate climate, all of which attract many tourists to the region. A new logo was also created. Bordering six other regions, Centre-Val-de-Loire borders most of the eighteen regions in France. The adjacent regions are Normandy to the northwest, Île-de-France to the northeast, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté to

1326-524: The Loire, it shows an image of balance and diversity. In 1989, American-based animators Andreas Deja, Glen Keane, and Tom Sito, and draftsmen Jean Gillmore, Thom Enriquez, and Hans Bacher launched an expedition to the chateau to do their research for the animated adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast". Loir-et-Cher is a part of the modern region of Centre-Val de Loire . Adjacent departments are Eure-et-Loir to

1377-947: The Louis XII de France's court, who was the head of the Music of the King's Bedroom from 1623 to 1643. The Loir-et-Cher's department is a part of the Centre Region. It is adjacent of these departments : the Eure-et-Loir, the Loiret, the Cher, the Indre, the Indre-et-Loire and the Sarthe. Due to its surface area of 6 343 km, it is the 31st largest department in the nation. It has a privileged geographical situation because it

1428-843: 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

1479-423: 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

1530-493: The beginning of the importance of Blois and of the Blaisois in the politic life of the French, especially under the last Valois. During that period, kings and financiers competed to build castles and elegant abodes which now form an important part of the French national heritage. (Chambord, Blois, Cheverny and so on.) After that, there were religious wars which were extremely ferocious under Charles IX 's reign. In 1576 and 1588,

1581-414: 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

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1632-516: The department, Montrichard turns to Amboise and Tours, Saint-Aignan wants to turn to the Berry and Salbris to Vierzon. Finally, Orleans gave Blois an important part of the Sologne except Beaugency and Tours didn't give Amboise. The department was founded 4 March 1790, in accordance with the law of 22 December 1789. It is constituted of some old provinces of the Orleanais and of the Touraine along with

1683-429: The east, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes to the southeast, Nouvelle-Aquitaine to the southwest and Pays de la Loire to the west. Centre-Val de Loire comprises six departments: Cher , Eure-et-Loir , Indre , Indre-et-Loire , Loir-et-Cher , and Loiret . The gross domestic product (GDP) of the region was 72.4 billion euros in 2018, accounting for 3.1% of French economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power

1734-742: The end of the First Empire") The poet Pierre de Ronsard , the inventor Denis Papin , and the historian Augustin Thierry come from here. Other well-known people are also associated with this department, such as François the First , Gaston d’Orleans , the Marshall Maunoury , and the abbot Gregoire (Bishop of Blois, elected at the Constituante). In the artistic domain, there is the compositor Antoine Boesset (1587–1643), musician in

1785-620: 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

1836-659: 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

1887-440: The north, Loiret to the north-east, Cher to the south-east, Indre to the south, Indre-et-Loire to the south-west, and Sarthe to the west. The department comprises 6,314 km, which makes it the 31st largest of the French departments in terms of area. The line of the river Loire traverses the land, ensuring easy communication between its own capital, Blois , and the vibrant cultural and commercial centres of Tours to

1938-407: 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

1989-442: 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

2040-429: 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 ,

2091-430: The region of Centre-Val de Loire was created from parts of historical provinces : Touraine , Orléanais and Berry . First, the name Centre was chosen by the government purely on the basis of geography, in reference to its location in northwest-central France (the central part of the original French language area ). However, the Centre region is not situated in the geographical centre of France (except

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2142-412: 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

2193-428: 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

2244-593: 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

2295-480: 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

2346-455: 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

2397-532: The valley, and agriculture is prominent in the region of the Beauce and the Perche to the Sologne which were prosperous until the 17th century. However, politically, the region remained quartered between the neighboring earldoms and duchies. In 1397, the House of Orleans became the possession of the Comté of Blois. In 1497, Louis d’Orleans (23rd count hereditary of Blois) was crowned with the name of Louis XII . This marked

2448-585: The west and the fringes of the Seine-Paris basin at Orléans to the east. Its main rivers are the Loire , on which its prefecture (capital) Blois is situated, the Loir and the Cher . The most populous commune is Blois , the prefecture. As of 2019, there are 6 communes with more than 5,000 inhabitants: The inhabitants of the department are called the Loir-et-Chériens . The president of

2499-616: Was 25,200 euros or 84% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 99% of the EU average. An economic development agency, called Centréco , was created in 1994 by the Regional Council of Centre to promote the inflow of investments and the establishment of new businesses by French and foreign companies in the Centre region. This contributes to a mission of economic promotion, international support to regional companies, and

2550-490: 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

2601-472: 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

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