Pays de la Loire

¹ French Land Register data, which exclude lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km² (0.386 sq. mi. or 247 acres) as well as the estuaries of rivers

Pays de la Loire is one of the 26 regions of France. It is one of the regions created in the late 20th century to serve as a zone of influence for its capital, Nantes, one of a handful so-called "balancing metropolises" (métropoles d'équilibre)¹. Other examples of "artificially created" regions include Rhône-Alpes, which was created as the region for Lyon, and Midi-Pyrénées, which was created as the region for Toulouse.

1 Geography
2 Demography
3 Major communities
4 External links
5 Notes

[edit] Geography

Pays de la Loire is made up of the following historical provinces:

a part of Brittany, with its old capital Nantes contained within the Loire-Atlantique department. This is only 20% of Brittany. The other 80% of Brittany make up the region of Bretagne.
Anjou: is largely contained within the Maine-et-Loire department. The whole of the former province of Anjou is contained inside Pays de la Loire.
Maine: is now divided between the Mayenne and Sarthe departments. The whole of the former province of Maine is contained inside Pays de la Loire.
a part of Poitou: is contained within the Vendée department. Most of the old province of Poitou is inside the Poitou-Charentes region.
a part of Perche: is within the northeast of Sarthe department. The rest of Perche is inside the Basse-Normandie and Centre regions.
a small part of Touraine: southeast of Maine-et-Loire department. Most of the former province of Touraine is inside the Centre region.

Consequently, the name of the region, chosen by the French central government, was not based on history, but purely on geographical references: Pays (i.e. "lands") de la Loire (i.e. "of the Loire River"). However, the majority of the famous châteaux of the Loire Valley are located in the Centre region, and not inside Pays de la Loire, despite the confusing name. The Pays de la Loire present many great monuments as the castles of Angers, Laval, Mayenne and the Nantes "Château des Ducs de Bretagne", the Royal Fontevraud Abbey (the widest monastic ensemble in Europe), the old city of Le Mans but also many Natural Parks (as the Brière, the Marsh of Poitou...).

[edit] Demography

Evolution of the population listed by departments:

Year	Population of the departments
Year	Loire-Atlantique department	Maine-et-Loire department	Mayenne department	Sarthe department	Vendée department	Total Pays de la Loire
1801	369.305	375.544	305.654	388.143	243.426	1.682.072
1851	535.664	516.197	374.566	473.071	383.734	2.283.232
1901	664.971	515 431	313.103	422.699	441.311	2.357.515
1921	649.691	475.485			397.292	2.174.150
1936	659.428	478.404	251.348	388.519	389.211	2.166.910
1946	665.064				393.787	2.224.163
1954	733.575				395.641	2.320.177
1962	803.372	535 122	250.030	443.019	408.928	2.440.471
1968	861.452	585.563	252.762	461.839	421.250	2.582.866
1975	934.499	629.849	261.789	490 385	450.641	2.767.163
1982	995.498	675.321	271.784	504.768	483.027	2.930.398
1990	1.050.539	704.668	277.748	513.280	508.962	3.055.197
2005	1.208.761	754.997	297.854	551.971	587.162	3.400.745

[edit] Major communities

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Pays de la Loire

(French) Regional Council of Pays de la Loire Official Site
(French) Bretagne Réunie, political group for a United Brittany, oppose the Pays de Loire
(French) and (Breton)

Blog: Nantes is Brittany

[edit] Notes

¹ In the 1960s, eight large regional cities of France (Lille, Nancy, Strasbourg, Lyon, Nantes, Bordeaux, Marseille, Toulouse) were made "balancing metropolises", receiving special financial and technical help from the French government in order to counterbalance the excessive weight of Paris inside France.