Talk:Regions of France

Number of régions

The article France says there are 23 regions, whereas this one says 22: what is the actual number? Why is there this difference? - User:Oliver — Preceding undated comment added 21:48, 7 September 2002 (UTC)

this page is apparently only dealing with metropolitan regions. You may either change the title of the article. Or add the 23rd region. It would be more politically correct not to neglect part of the french country...:-)

User:Anthere — Preceding undated comment added 22:27, 7 September 2002 (UTC)

Has the 23rd region the exact same status as the other ones? "with conseil regional"? where is the capital/seat of the conseil regional of this region? - User:Olivier — Preceding undated comment added 22:35, 7 September 2002 (UTC)

The map is wrong there is 2 regions for PACA : Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ericd (talk • contribs) 22:43, 7 September 2002 (UTC)

I remove this map : File:FDepartments.JPG — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ericd (talk • contribs) 22:45, 7 September 2002 (UTC)

---

oops, we have 4 overseas regions, that makes a total of 26 regions !!! It's a very big issue, we always forget them... the 4 regions are la Guadeloupe, la Guyane, la Martinique, la Réunion, these are regions made of only one department.

Here's an interesting link [1]

linking to these one also

[2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anthere (talk • contribs) 22:51, 7 September 2002 (UTC)

and, the map is wrong in more than one place... - User:Anthere — Preceding undated comment added 22:53, 7 September 2002 (UTC)

Any link to an official government page? - User:Oliver — Preceding undated comment added 22:55, 7 September 2002 (UTC)

[3]

and this one [4] --ant — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anthere (talk • contribs) 23:10, 7 September 2002 (UTC)

Government websites are talking of 26 regions. - User:Olivier — Preceding undated comment added 19:33, 8 September 2002 (UTC)

Here is an interesting link (in French): 1999 census, including population of regions, departements and cities of more 100,000 inhabitants. Caution: "Aires urbaines de plus de 50,000 habitants" doesn't give the population of the cities, but the population of the "urban area", the city and its surroundings. http://www.dgcl.interieur.gouv.fr/publications/CL_en_chiffres/CL2001_ch01.pdf - User:Olivier — Preceding undated comment added 12:47, 17 September 2002 (UTC)

A good map here would be very helpful. I have an official government of France map showing the regions (22 + 4) and it seems to be the same as the one you removed. Perhaps someone could: 1) explain the map errors and 2) replace it with a good one? Thanks... Christine G. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.105.200.132 (talk) 14:11, 27 September 2002 (UTC)

I put up this map. It is politically correct and for foreigners in that it does not break Normandie into 2 but conversely shows the 3 distinct areas making the 1 region of Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur. (See Peter Mayle's book) There should be a map here, if someone doesn't like mine, put up something else but don't delete it because you don't understand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DW (talk • contribs) 15:01, 27 September 2002 (UTC)

2007

the explanation for the regions is confusing. Also, I have recently learned that France has 22, NOT' 26 regions. Which one is right? plz let me know @ my page!'--The lil lady with the hat 22:27, 29 September 2007 (UTC)--

2009

The island of Mayotte in the Indian ocean about 100 kms off the coast of Africa (Tanzania/Mozambique) is slated to become an overseas region in 2011, with the Mayotte island itself the 101st department of the French Republic. Soon, there will be 27 regions of France, five overseas and 21 in mainland France, and Corse treated like an autonomous region separate from "minor" regional governments. There is effort to create two regions in southern France: the Midi AND Pyrenees, and the Arpitans-Savoies facing the Swiss border. + 71.102.2.206 (talk) 09:33, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Has the PACA been considered TWO administrative regions or cultural regions, like the Nice (Nizzard) and Marseille (Massilla) are on their way of separation into new regions? The maps continually shown the PACA is still one united region, not split apart unless a movement is under way to subdivide the PACA. I heard about proposals to split the Midi-Pyrenees and Rhone-Alpes regions, yet I hadn't received any information on the subject. + 71.102.2.206 (talk) 09:33, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Corsica

can someone add more info about that supposed special status for Corse please. Izwalito — Preceding unsigned comment added by Izwalito~enwiki (talk • contribs) 00:41, 14 January 2005 (UTC)

page move

move request withdrawn, User:Mzajac showed me that this is an larger issue than I thought before. Too many French terms have no equivalent, so producing consistency in respect to worldwide subdivision naming produces inconsistency in the French subdivision series. Thanks Mzajac for your patience and your friendly arguing. Tobias Conradi 08:20, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping up a good attitude after all my haranguing on this issue. Cheers, Michael Z. 2005-04-1 09:12 Z

• support - pluralize, use "of" and use english. This is the way it is done for more than 120 other subdivision pages (99%) - no exception for French. Tobias Conradi 03:35, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Oppose This move may make sense if we were also to anglicize département, arrondissement, canton, communauté, syndicat, commune, collectivité, pays d'outre-mer, and territoire d'outre-mer, but then I think much of the meaning would be lost. —Michael Z. 2005-04-1 00:16 Z
  • it may also make sense if we don't. But that's a good idea, get rid of french words in article titles if there are english equivalents. This is common use everywhere beside some subdivisions of slavic CIS countries. Suggestions:
    • Régions -> Regions (already used in infobox the word "Overseas" so Overseas regions stops frenglish)
    • Départements -> Departments (incl. Overseas departements, like e.g. for all the departments in Latin america)
    • Arrondissements (leave)
    • Cantons (is english use)
    • Communautés urbaines -> Urbain community
    • Communautés d'agglomération -> Agglomeration community (need to be discussed)
    • Communautés de communes -> Community of communes (need to be discussed)
    • Syndicats d'agglomération nouvelle -> ? (need to be discussed)
    • Communes (leave)
    • Municipal arrondissements (first word is already english, second can be considered as english use)
    • Collectivités d'outre-mer ?
    • Collectivité sui generis ?
    • Pays d'outre-mer -> Overseas lands or overseas countries
    • Territoire d'outre-mer -> "Overseas territory" Tobias Conradi 04:59, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's not a good idea at all. The English word commune has a different meaning. Why would you leave arrondissement if you're changing the others? Agglomeration community sounds awkward. Why do you consider canton more English than any of the others? If you try this, you'll end up with a hodgepodge of terms in bastardized English and French, which will leave people guessing which language they're reading, and wondering what they were translated from.

The only one that should be changed, for consistency, is Municipal arrondissements to arrondissements Municipals. —Michael Z. 2005-04-1 07:05 Z

---

Discussion

almost 100 pages for other countries are named like Counties of X, Provinces of X, or Regions of X. This is english wikipedia. After moving, a lot of re-redirects and even re-re-redirects have to be solved. see also Wikipedia:WikiProject_Subnational_entities/Naming. No other wikipedia except the french one uses the french word in the page title. Tobias Conradi 21:52, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Should be renamed Region or Région of France, without the "s". See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (pluralization). — Instantnood 14:46, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

I moved back to Région in France. The person who had moved to Régions of France did not even change the redirect pages, so that hundreds of article links were screwed up!! In tune with the other articles about French administrative divisions, the article should be named Région in France. There may be other countries with régions (with accent), such as French speaking countries from Africa for instance. Region without an accent is not a precise term, it refers to a geographical area, not to an administrative area. Hardouin 13:04, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

by your rule this would mean to give an accent to the regions of Italy. Tobias Conradi 23:35, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think the Italian singular noun is regione. The title would be Regione in Italy, or plural Regioni of Italy. I think region in English is also a synonym for the French région, but using it is ambiguous. I'd prefer to see it with the acute accent, to differentiate it from the generic term. Does anyone have a big Oxford dictionary, to check if it contains région or regione? —Michael Z. 2005-03-28 07:43 Z

this is english WP. I do not care about Oxford dictionary. Yes "region" is ambigous, but what is solved by applying french word for french regions? Will you use it for administrative use only? Why? Then also will you use provincia and región for spanish entities? For me it looks like abusing the english wikipedia as an mulitlingual WP. I may quote my own words No other wikipedia except the french one uses the french word in the page title. Tobias Conradi 06:32, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Without looking in the dictionary, how do you know absolutely that "région" is not an English word for région? Quoting yourself as an authority will only get you so far. —Michael Z. 2005-03-29 07:00 Z

it may be an english word. There are lots of englishes. I quoted myself because only in en:WP people want to do a mass import of foreign words. It is ok to have articles about these words, maybe there is one in OED. WP should have the same. But you destroy usability by using them like everyday words for something that has a very easy to use equivalent. With 6 billion people on this planet it is not difficult to see that some words are used in english by several thousand, hundred thousand or so people. And the rest will just be interested how many regions exist in France, what the departments are, how many people live there ... Some of these people probably can not type ´ . Others wonder what makes the French regions so different to rehiyons in the Phillipines or regions of Peru or regions of Italy. In the end, all are administrative regions with distinctive characteristics. use "Région française" in the intro and state that région is sometimes used in English if that is the case. But for article title avoid confusion. Tobias Conradi 07:02, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You make some good points, but none of them explain how naming the article région makes it harder to use. It's not hard to read or confusing. You don't have to type "é" to find the article. Regions of France will redirect there.

As you say, administrative subdivisions around the world are all distinctive. But renaming everything in the world to generic names with a high level of "Englishness" is just going to start watering down the distinctive character. People who fear the range of nuance in the English language and orthography can go to http://simple.wikipedia.org/ to feel comfortable. —Michael Z. 2005-03-30 07:39 Z

the nice feature to see in the browser which pages you already visited is broken than. People without "é"-typing have harder time to make correct links. Because administrative regions around the world have different features but not all of them can be spelled differently the distinctivness has to be shown in another way. If french "région" is allowed than probably people will vote for spanish "región" to be english next. Followed by uppercase "Region" in all cases where you speak about stuff in Germany. If Phillipines are more important people will start with "rehiyon". Flemish people opposed to use french "région" for the Brussels Capital region will vote for the use of "gewest". This all paving the way for Japanese and especially Chinese words into the en:wikipedia, all for the sake of "more correct" wording. The correctness of the article titles will profit at the cost of usability for people not being affiliated with the more-correct-regions. People from the regions and region-experts are happy about correct titles. long live shěng, zhíxiáshì, zìzhìqū, dìjíshì, xiànjíshì, dìqū, zìzhìzhōu. all of them shall have their articles. But none of them should be used for article titles about the regions itself. Tobias Conradi 23:54, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

When I click on a link in Wikipedia that redirects, then go back, my browser correctly colours the link as visited (in both Safari/Mac and Firefox/Mac). Redirects seem to work just fine.

I think that when voting is called for, Wikipedians will vote for what they think is right. Most of the Wikipedia conventions are not hard-and-fast rules, and choosing the right course of action usually depends on editors' discretion or on consensus. That's how it intended to work, even if I don't always agree with the results. Precedents can influence practice on WP to some degree, but the need to second-guess future hypothetical votes is not a convincing argument for me. —Michael Z. 2005-03-31 01:18 Z

WP makes the redirects internally, so this does not work. It is not an HTTP redirect.

to avoid unnecessary future work it is good to think of future developments. Of course I do not know what will happen in the future. I justed wanted to show what can happen if one or five sets of regions (french speaking countries) are treated different. Of course you can say they are not treated different because we look in OED and OED has no spanish or filipino and than we follow OED like a holy leader. Tobias Conradi 02:55, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What does not work? The links are marked as visited in my browser, just like I wrote. I just tried it in Internet Explorer/Windows, and it works in that browser too. —Michael Z. 2005-03-31 04:26 Z

responded on his talk page. --Tobias

Your points are worth considering. And I'm not worshipping the OED (I don't know what the OED says on this topic, or whether it supports the use of régions; I don't have an OED at my disposal). But the people who compile the Oxford dictionaries very carefully research current English usage, before deciding what is an English word—the dictionary is documentary, not prescriptive. If région does happen to appear there, it means that there are solid precedents of it being used as an English word in respected publications. —Michael Z. 2005-03-31 04:43 Z

@Hardouin The person who had moved to Régions of France did not even change the redirect pages, so that hundreds of article links were screwed up!! so did you by your backmove Tobias Conradi 06:36, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I'm in favor of moving the article to "Regions of France", possibly "Régions of France" as plural seems to be the standard for subnational entity articles (with "of" rather than "in"; "in" may be the better choice for singular). If we can't agree on that, I prefer it to be placed back where it used to be ("List of regions in France" or "Regions of France"?). -- User:Docu — Preceding unsigned comment added by Docu (talk • contribs) 10:58, 29 March 2005 (UTC)

Région d'outre-mer

Why are the régions d'outre-mer numbered 971 to 974? — Instantnood 14:37, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

The départements d'outre-mer are numbered 971 to 974. Régions have no number. Hardouin 13:05, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Basse and Haute

In the names of French regions and departments, the morphemes "Basse" and "Haute" seem to occur frequently. At first, I thought there was some place called "Haute" that got divided up. But further investigation indicate that these translate to "low" and "high", respectively. Would it be appropriate to translate them to "Lower" and "Upper" when they appear in these names? Either that or the more literal translations would be very helpful to English readers who don't speak much or any French. Thanks, Beland 05:12, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

When a department is named Haute it usually means that the river from which the department take it's name from has it's source here or some other geographic feature like mountains is prominent in the department. For example Haute Marne has the source of the river Marne and Haut Rhin has the source of the river Rhin, Haute Savoie is more mountaous than Savoie ("Haute" and "Haut" are the same word with different genders). Haute (or Haut) can be translated into English as both "High", "Higher" and "Upper" and Basses (or Bas) as "Low" or "Lower" --David PJ Webster 12:39, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

They have since been translated in article names and the map in this article. -- Beland (talk) 16:47, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately (making these articles inconsistent with the treatment of other French territorial divisions)! Can anyone direct me to where the discussion leading to this renaming decision took place? -- Picapica (talk) 20:22, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually Haute-Savoie's average elevation is lower than that of Savoie. In that case, Haute-Savoie is "upper" with respect to the Savoie.--Mole2 (talk) 01:59, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

'Région' redirecting to 'Region' (and not here)

I was reading the page on Corsica, and it mentions that it is one of the 26 régions of France. The term région redirects to region. Previously, it redirected to Régions of France, but the person who changed the redirect made this note: "amending redirect; France not the only country to use "région")." I think the redirect should go to this artcicle, Régions of France, and not to region. Anyone else agree? --Hecktor 16:39, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

It should at the very least go to a page explaining *which* countries use région and linking to the respective articles on those countries' subdivisions, in my opinion. If such a page does not yet exist -- well, then let it redirect to this article for now. —Nightstallion (?) 17:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

What an anomaly this would be

This is really screwed up. Why the hell on earth are the French administrative divisions not translated? Région?!! It should be moved to region. It is pretty obvious. Nearly all other country articles' regions translate as such. Otherwise, it is plain stupid. There is no logical rationale to keep it at "région". I had this discussion at some place else, and I see it as the product of a really arrogant outlook on the world. When I am in the French wiki, I see no such article "States des USA".. The lack of logic is astounding. This article should be moved to "Regions of France" per et al, it doesn't matter if they refer to an administrative structure or something else. The precision of them being/not being an administrative structure should be given in the intro. That way, the uninformed readers will know what they are up against. This is called COMMON SENSE. This attitude is really bad encyclopedic behavior, and this is exactly the reason why the France article has not even been able to reach GA status whereas Belgium, Bangladesh, Australia and Nepal have become Featured Articles. The France article is not any better than a cheap tourism brochure. Baristarim 12:48, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• Page should be moved per all other country regions articles. There is absolutely no justification for keeping this as is, except some lame old French stubbornness. I have read all the debate above, and have not read any substantial argument for keeping the name at "régions" except "why not?". That doesn't cut it. L'exception culturelle française n'existe plus les gars, bah oui, il faut l'accepter. Les noms des divisions administratives des autre pays ne sont pas utilisées ds leur langue natale ds WikiFR non +. Dc il faut arreter de faire comme si la France est le Roi du monde. This way, no French article will ever reach anything close to FA status.Baristarim 12:59, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Have asked for the page move at the admin board. Have translated almost all other article titles and infoboxes. Some may have slipped through. --Bob 01:39, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Maps

Can someone clean up the maps at the bottom? They seem to be placed incorrectly on the page. I am not so hot at doing stuff like that, so if someone who is good at all the syntax could take care of it, that would be helpful...--Dmz5 03:30, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Stubs

To Do: Add Appropriate Stub Markings to the Sub Aricles of this page.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:France_geography_stubs

hi,

i need to know about il-de-france for a school project i have most of my information but i need to know what regions surround it and something about it????help?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.29.67.53 (talk) 20:34, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Alaska has no counties.

The General characteristics section compares the median land area of a French region to political divisions in various other countries. For the US, it's "about 25% of the median land area of an Alaskan county." One of many problems with that comparison is that Alaska has no counties.

Alaska's similar political unit is the borough, but an Alaskan borough is very much different from a county in other states, particularly in the range of sizes, which is enormous. Comparing anything to the median land area of an Alaskan borough is about as useful as comparing it to the median land area of all the countries on earth: nobody has a ready idea what a statement like that means, and it would take a huge amount of research to make it meaningful even to an Alaskan, much less anybody else. The whole point of making comparisons like this is to give the reader a quick idea of the scale of the thing by comparing it to something they're already familiar with, which this particular example fails miserably to do.

Several months ago, someone tried to change the comparison to "just a bit larger than the state of Vermont," which is a very much more useful example, but it was shot down immediately and replaced again with the absurd "Alaskan county" example. For one thing, the state of Vermont actually exists, while Alaskan counties don't. Second, most Americans already have at least some vague idea how big Vermont is (small for a state, but very big for a county), and anybody who doesn't can find out very easily by just looking at any map of the United States. Although the state of Maryland is even closer in area to the median French region than Vermont is, Maryland's highly irregular outline makes it much harder to visualize, whereas Vermont's near-trapezoidal outline makes it ideal for this purpose (and it even has a French name!).

For these reasons, I'm going to change it back to Vermont. If Rockybiggs (who shot down Vermont the last time) or anybody else feels compelled to resurrect the mythical Alaskan county again, I hope they will at least read this explanation before they do so and consider how unhelpful they're being, not to mention wrong.--Jim10701 (talk) 01:53, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Mayotte?

What about Mayotte? Is Mayotte a region in and of itself, just like the other Overseas Regions/Departments? Inkan1969 (talk) 05:55, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

See fr:Département_et_région_d'outre-mer#Les_cinq_d.C3.A9partements_et_r.C3.A9gions_d.27outre-mer. Translate the first sentence and you will see that they are both regions and departements. --Ysangkok (talk) 19:33, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

a question of dates

I'm puzzled. This says the regions were created in 1982. Lower Normandy says the region of Normandy was divided in 1956. Did the regions, or something like them, have any legal existence before 1982 or not? —Tamfang (talk) 05:45, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

French Regions were legally created as "Circonscriptions d'action régionale" in 1960, renamed as "établissements publics régionaux" in 1972, became "territorial collectivities" in 1982 (loi Defferre) that went in force in 1986 (first regional council elections). The original design was a project in 1955-56, a mere organization of French administration with no real visibility for us commoners. So they have had legal existence as administrative divisions of France since 1960, as effective "territorial collectivities" since 1986. Hope this helps... --— J. F. B. ^{(me´n parlar)} 09:40, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Those flags are fake

Hi,

All the flags below are fake flags only created and added on Wikimedia Commons by SiBr₄ by combinations of old flags. Those regions don't even have their defenitives names. You really should have a look on Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Please remove those fake flags.

• 
  Flag of Aquitaine-Limousin-Poitou-Charentes
• 
  Flag of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
• 
  Flag of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
• 
  Flag of Grand Est
• 
  Flag of Hauts-de-France
• 
  Flag of Languedoc-Roussillon-Midi-Pyrénées
• 
  Flag of Pays de la Loire
• 
  Flag of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur

Thank you. --Mattho69 (talk) 23:14, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

None of these images are used on this article. Kahastok talk 19:46, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

They were at the time this section was posted in June 2016, and were removed a few days afterwards. See also the original request for the files and subsequent discussion of their dubiousness on my Commons talk page. SiBr₄ (talk) 23:42, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

OK, I got confused by the date. Oops. Kahastok talk 07:50, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

La Porte Ouverte Chrétienne

Shouldn't we mention La Porte Ouverte Chrétienne and their gathering in Mulhouse as it kicked off the Grand Est cluster? --Pjacobi (talk) 19:44, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Flag of Basse-Normandie.svg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 00:24, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

English exonyms/literal translations problem

I’d like to start a discussion on the use of English exonyms and translations in this article, especially in the table list of administrative region, which has some problematic or archaic English translations. While some of the regions/provinces of French do have specific English exonyms (for example Brittany, Normandy instead of Bretagne, Normandie), there are some literal English translations listed here that are never actually used in English. I.e., Franche-Comté is never referred to as “Free County” by historians or geographers, nor is Île-de-France referred to as “Island of France.” English exonyms should only be used when they are still in common parlance. See this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_exonyms.

I recommend the following modifications for the archaic, literal English translations. If we want to provide a literal translation in addition, that needs to be indicated with a note that they’re not in common usage.

Franche-Comté should be used instead of “Free County”
Grand Est should be used instead of “Great East”
Hauts-de-France should be used instead of “Upper France”
Île-de-France should be used instead of “Island of France”
Nouvelle-Aquitaine should be used instead of “New Aquitaine”
Pays de la Loire should be used instead of “Loire Countries”
Côte d’Azur should be used instead of “Azure Coast”

--Mole2 (talk) 18:04, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• France-Constituent-Lands.png

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 00:53, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

What do they do?

While this page has much information, it doesn't actually say what these regions do? Police? Schools? roads, public transport, courts, fire services?? i think explaining this would be very useful Foxdown (talk) 17:51, 9 November 2023 (UTC)