The 101 Departments In France (and a bit about them)

The 101 departments in France are grouped into 18 regions (read about those here) but each department is distinct, often with its own foods and traditions and, of course, scenery.

For foreigners, they can be explained as districts of France, or even French provinces, but here, they are called départements.

What are French departments and why should we care?

As good French schoolchildren, we’re supposed to know every French department by heart, but we don’t — except for those near where we live or spend our summer holidays.

A département (department in French) is an administrative unit, with regions above it and communes (towns or villages) below.

A department can also be subdivided into smaller parts of France, but that’s purely administrative. These segments — like cantons or arrondissements — aren’t used often enough to worry about.

The first 83 French departments were created in 1790, at a time of huge turmoil: the Bastille had just been stormed, and Louis XVI had begun his slide toward the guillotine (that would happen in early 1793).

But efforts to consolidate France were also moving forward, and the departments were part of this. They were designed to be roughly the same size, with each capital no more than a day’s horseback ride from the farthest corners of the department.

But please wait a while before getting that map tattoo. Things will change again someday, I promise.

How many departments in France?

France is divided into 101 départements — from mainland regions to overseas territories — and knowing their names or numbers can be surprisingly useful

It's always good to have an idea of the name or number of your favorite departments, yours, for example, or those nearby.

In France we often use the numbers to refer to them... for example, you're going skiing in the village of St Bumpkin? A friend might ask, "Is that in the 74?" What they really mean is: "Is that in the département of the Haute-Savoie?"

There is no hard and fast rule. Sometimes we use numbers, sometimes names, sometimes smaller areas within departments that are known and meaningful, but not official.

For example, I live in the Bugey, in the Ain, the 01. If I'm talking to someone on the other side of France, I'll call it the Ain or the 01. But if I'm talking to someone from the Ain, chances are they'll know the beautiful Bugey, famous for its chickens, cliff climbing and stunning rivers.

The map of France departments and the list below should help make sense of it all. Or confuse you further. 

Complete list of French departments

The following is a list of all the regions of France and their respective departments, or départements, along with each department's number. I've visited many of these but haven't written about them all – but I'm working on it.

Where available, click the link to explore my in-depth guide for that department.

France's overseas possessions

These regions are not in Metropolitan France (meaning they are located on other continents) but are fully integrated politically into France — they pay taxes, send representatives to the National Assembly, and so on:

• Guadeloupe
• Martinique
• Guyana
• La Réunion
• Mayotte

Because of history, France also has a set of overseas possessions in various categories that you might not realize are officially part of the country:

• Overseas collectivities: French Polynesia (think Tahiti), Saint Pierre et Miquelon (off the coast of Newfoundland in Canada), Wallis and Futuna (in the Pacific between Fiji and Samoa), and Saint Martin and Saint Barthélemy, both well-known Caribbean vacation spots. Each sends deputies to the National Assembly.
• Overseas territories: French Southern and Antarctic Lands, plus a few scattered islands in the Indian Ocean.
• New Caledonia: a unique case with special status — part French, part independent.
• Clipperton Island: a tiny, state-owned enclave off the coast of Acapulco, uninhabited, with no clear decision on its future use.

Why do we even have departments in France?

The idea of départments has a long history.

We first floated the idea to our king, Louis XIV, in 1655, but it took until the French Revolution to sort things out. At that time, France was a patchwork of administrative, military, religious, legal, and fiscal territories that overlapped one another.

Finally, in 1789, the Revolution brought some order to the confusion and created 83 departments. Their sizes were calculated so one could ride from anywhere in the department to its capital on horseback in less than a day.

Today, some departments are urban, others rural, and their size varies widely.

In densely populated ones, you can cross the entire department in half an hour on a bus or tram.

In rural areas like mine, it can take an hour and a half to reach the capital.

Given France’s love of paperwork (you can thank Napoleon Bonaparte for that), you may have to make the trip the department's capital (or main préfecture) more often than you’d like — and without a car, it could mean half a day on public transport.

Most departments are named after rivers or mountains, with a few exceptions such as Savoy, which likes to go its own way and sometimes pretends it’s not part of France at all.

Department numbers have two digits, except Corsica, which uses one digit and one letter (2A and 2B), and the overseas departments, which have three digits. A uniform numbering system might have been simpler...

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Bonjour! I’m Leyla! I was born in Paris and now live in the bucolic mountain foothills of Eastern France between Lyon and Annecy. 

I'm rediscovering my own back yard after years of living abroad in Canada, Spain and Switzerland as a journalist and a diplomat － and I'm loving every minute.

Passionate about history and culture, I’ve created Offbeat France to seek out my country’s mysteries and legends, less-traveled destinations, along with plenty of food stops and many castles － I am French, after all!

Read more!

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