How to Learn the French Departments: Numbers, Regions and Prefectures

Ask a French person where the Lozère is and you might get a shrug. Ask them for the number 48 and there is a fair chance they know it straight away, because they have seen it on number plates and envelopes all their life. That gap between names and numbers is exactly why the departments of France are so hard to learn from a list, and why they are so satisfying once they click.

This guide covers where the departments came from, why their numbers look random, how they fit into the 13 regions, and the prefectures that catch almost everyone out. At the end there is a simple routine for learning all 96 without a single flashcard.

What is a French department?

A department (département) is one of the main layers of local government in France, sitting between the commune (the town or village) and the region. Each one has a prefecture, the town where the prefect, the representative of the national government, has their office. Departments run things like secondary roads, social services and the buildings of the collèges, the schools for 11 to 15 year olds.

Metropolitan France, meaning mainland France plus Corsica, has 96 departments. Add the five overseas departments (Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Réunion and Mayotte) and you get 101.

Where the departments came from

The departments were created during the French Revolution and came into effect in March 1790, with 83 of them at first. The revolutionaries wanted to replace the old provinces, each with its own privileges, laws and taxes, with units that were roughly equal and run the same way.

A popular rule of thumb at the time was that anyone should be able to reach their department's main town in about a day on horseback. That explains why the departments in the middle of the country look so similar in size, and why the map looks like a patchwork of fairly regular shapes rather than the sprawling old provinces.

The names were chosen on purpose to avoid the old provinces too. Almost every department is named after a natural feature:

• Rivers: Gironde, Loire, Seine, Somme, Dordogne, Marne and dozens more.
• Mountains: Jura, Vosges, Hautes-Alpes, Pyrénées-Orientales.
• The coast: Pas-de-Calais is named after the Strait of Dover, which the French call the Pas de Calais. Finistère comes from the Latin finis terrae, the end of the earth, which is a fair description of the western tip of Brittany.
• Something stranger: Calvados takes its name from a line of rocks off the Normandy coast.

One of the best trivia questions on the subject: the Var river no longer flows through the Var department. In 1860 the area around Grasse was moved into the new Alpes-Maritimes department, and the river went with it.

Why the numbers look random (they are not)

The numbers were given in alphabetical order of the department names, which is why the list starts 01 Ain, 02 Aisne, 03 Allier. The confusing part is that several departments changed their names later, but kept their numbers.

Some examples:

• 04 Alpes-de-Haute-Provence was Basses-Alpes, which sat neatly after 03 Allier.
• 44 Loire-Atlantique was Loire-Inférieure.
• 64 Pyrénées-Atlantiques was Basses-Pyrénées.
• 76 Seine-Maritime was Seine-Inférieure.

Once you know the old names, the order makes sense again. Pyrénées-Atlantiques at 64 looks odd next to 65 Hautes-Pyrénées and 66 Pyrénées-Orientales, until you remember it was once the "Basses" one in a run of three.

Paris and the 1968 shake-up

The numbers in the 90s come from a big reorganisation around Paris in 1968. Two old departments, Seine and Seine-et-Oise, were split up. Paris kept the old Seine number, 75. Yvelines took Seine-et-Oise's 78. The rest became new departments at the end of the list: 91 Essonne, 92 Hauts-de-Seine, 93 Seine-Saint-Denis, 94 Val-de-Marne and 95 Val-d'Oise. That is why the departments of the Paris suburbs all sit together at the end, after 90 Territoire de Belfort.

Corsica: 2A and 2B

Corsica was a single department, number 20, until 1976, when it was split in two: 2A Corse-du-Sud (prefecture Ajaccio) and 2B Haute-Corse (prefecture Bastia). Postcodes on the island still start with 20, which is a small detail that comes up in quizzes more often than you would think.

Numbers on number plates

Older French plates ended with the department number, which is how a whole country learned them by heart. Since 2009 the number in the blue strip on the right of a plate is chosen by the owner and does not have to match where the car is registered. Many people still pick their home department out of pride, so the habit lives on.

The 13 regions and how many departments each has

Since 2016 metropolitan France has had 13 regions, down from 22. Learning which departments belong to which region is the easiest way to give the map some structure:

• Occitanie: 13 departments, the most of any region.
• Nouvelle-Aquitaine: 12, and the largest region by area.
• Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes: 12.
• Grand Est: 10.
• Île-de-France: 8, Paris and the departments around it.
• Bourgogne-Franche-Comté: 8.
• Centre-Val de Loire: 6.
• Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur: 6.
• Hauts-de-France: 5.
• Normandie: 5.
• Pays de la Loire: 5.
• Bretagne: 4.
• Corse: 2.

Add them up and you get 96. A good first goal is to name every region with its departments for one corner of the country, say Brittany and Normandy, before moving on to the next.

Prefectures that catch everyone out

The prefecture is usually the biggest town in the department, but not always. These are the classic traps:

• Marne: the prefecture is Châlons-en-Champagne, not Reims, even though Reims is much bigger.
• Seine-Maritime: Rouen, not Le Havre.
• Saône-et-Loire: Mâcon, not Chalon-sur-Saône.
• Pyrénées-Atlantiques: Pau, not Bayonne or Biarritz.
• Manche: Saint-Lô, not Cherbourg.
• Var: Toulon today, but only since 1974. Before that it was Draguignan.

If you only remember one thing from this list, make it Marne. It comes up in nearly every quiz about French prefectures, precisely because so many people guess Reims.

How to learn all 96 departments

Lists do not work well here. There are too many similar names (Haute-Saône, Saône-et-Loire, Haute-Loire, Loire, Loire-Atlantique, Loir-et-Cher…) and the numbers have no geographic logic. What works better is a little practice every day, with the map in front of you.

1. Start with the shapes you already know. Finistère at the western tip, Gironde with its estuary, the two halves of Corsica, the tiny departments around Paris. These become your anchors.
2. Learn neighbours, not single departments. Once you know Gironde, learn the departments that touch it: Charente-Maritime, Charente, Dordogne, Lot-et-Garonne and Landes. Each new one is attached to something you already know.
3. Use the rivers. So many departments are named after rivers that following a river on the map teaches you a chain of them. The Loire alone gives you Loire, Haute-Loire, Loiret and Loire-Atlantique, and it flows through Maine-et-Loire and Indre-et-Loire on the way.
4. Attach the number last. Learn where a department is and what it is called first. The number is easier to remember once it has a place to stick to.
5. Read the prefecture every time. A bonus question after each department is a painless way to pick these up, one a day.

A daily game helps more than you would expect

This is exactly why we built Guess the Department (in French, le quiz des départements français). Each day you get one mystery department, shown only by its outline. You type a name or a number, and every wrong guess tells you how far away the answer is and in which direction. Once you find it, you get two bonus rounds: its region, then its prefecture.

One department a day does not sound like much, but the distance hints quietly teach you the whole map. After a few weeks you will notice that a miss of 80 km to the north-east already tells you which three departments it could be. Everyone gets the same department each day, so it is also a nice thing to compare with friends or a class.

If you want the rules in detail, the how to play guide explains the hints and the scoring.

Quick facts to remember

• 96 departments in metropolitan France, 101 including overseas.
• Created in 1790, originally 83.
• Numbered in alphabetical order of their original names.
• Corsica is 2A and 2B, but its postcodes start with 20.
• The Paris area departments (75, 77, 78, 91 to 95) were reorganised in 1968.
• 13 regions since 2016, with Occitanie having the most departments.

Pick one region this week, play the daily department, and see how many of the 96 you can place by the end of the month. You might be surprised how fast the map fills in.