D�partement

The d�partements (or departments) are administrative units of France, roughly analogous to British counties and now grouped into 22 metropolitan and four overseas r�gions. They were created on January 15, 1790 by the Constituent Assembly to replace the country's former provinces with a more rational structure. Most are named after the area's principal river(s) or other physical features.

Each d�partement is administered by a Conseil G�n�ral[?] elected for six years, and by a pr�fet[?] appointed by the French government and assisted by one or more sous-pr�fets[?] based in district centres outside the departmental capital. An administrative reform in 1982 transferred some of the pr�fets powers to the president of the Conseil G�n�ral.

The capital city of a d�partement bears the title of pr�fecture. D�partements are divided into one to five arrondissements. The capital city of an arrondissement is called the sous-pr�fecture. The civil servant in charge is the sous-pr�fet.

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

Most of the d�partements have an area of around 4000-8000 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 d�partements). The most populous is Nord (2,550,000) and the least populous Loz�re (74,000).

The number of d�partements 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, while the three yielded to Germany in Alsace-Lorraine in 1871 (Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin and Moselle) re-joined France in 1919.

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

The d�partements are numbered: their two-digit numbers appear in postcodes and on car number-plates.

Notes:

1. The overseas departments are former colonies outside France that now enjoy a status similar to European or metropolitan France. They can be considered to be a part of France (and of the EU), rather than dependent territories and and each of them constitutes a r�gion at the same time.
2. Beyond these there are also three "overseas territories" (French: territoires d'outre-mer, or TOM) that do not have this status. They are: French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna and the French Southern and Antarctic Territories.
3. Furthermore there are three separate territorial collectivities: 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 d�partements include:

• Seine-et-Oise