Picardy

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Picardy (disambiguation) .

Picardy Former French Region (until 2015)
Basic data
Today part of	Hauts-de-France
Administrative headquarters	Amiens
population  - total January 1, 2017  - density	1,931,436 inhabitants 99.6 inhabitants per km²
surface  - total  - share in France :	19,399 km² 3%
Departments	3
Arrondissements	13
Cantons	129
Communities	2,291
Formerly ISO 3166-2 code	FR-S

The Picardie [ pikaʀdi ] is a former region and province in the north of France . It used to consist of the Aisne , Oise and Somme departments , had an area of ​​19,399 km² and 1,931,436 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017). The capital of the region was Amiens . With the establishment of the regions in France in 1960, the Picardy region was rebuilt in what was later to be the borders. In 1972 the region received the status of an établissement public under the direction of a regional prefect.

geography

Ault Cote Picarde

Picardy is located in northern France, the south of the region can be reached from Paris in about an hour by car or train. There are convenient transport connections (road, rail, air, canal tunnels or ferry) to major European cities (e.g. London 2.30 am, Brussels 1.30 am).

It bordered the regions of Nord-Pas-de-Calais , Champagne-Ardenne , Île-de-France and Haute-Normandie as well as Belgium and the English Channel .

coat of arms

Description: In the blue-silver emblem there are three golden lilies and three red lions .

history

Picardy, which had belonged to western France and then to France since the division of the Franconian Empire , was the center of the peasant uprising, the "(Grande) Jacquerie ", in the middle of the 14th century and fell away during the Hundred Years War of France against England and the House of Burgundy 1419 and 1435 to Burgundy. Only with the division of Burgundy did it fall to France in 1477 or finally in 1493 together with Burgundy. Picardy was one of the main theaters of the First World War.

The decentralization laws of 1982 gave the regions the status of collectivités territoriales ( territorial authorities ), which until then had only been enjoyed by the municipalities and the départements . In 1986 the regional councils were directly elected for the first time. Since then, the region's powers vis-à-vis the central government in Paris have been gradually expanded.

On January 1, 2016, the Picardie region merged with the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region to form a new region called Hauts-de-France (provisionally called Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie from January to September 2016 ).

Cities

The most populous cities in Picardy are:

city	Inhabitants (year)	Department
Amiens	134,057 (2017)	Somme
Saint-Quentin	53,816 (2017)	Aisne
Beauvais	56,254 (2017)	Oise
Compiègne	40,199 (2017)	Oise
Creil	35,657 (2017)	Oise
Soissons	28,530 (2017)	Aisne
Laon	24,876 (2017)	Aisne
Abbeville	22,946 (2017)	Somme
Nogent-sur-Oise	20,033 (2017)	Oise
Senlis	14,277 (2017)	Oise

Political structure

The Picardy region is divided into three departments :

Department	prefecture	ISO 3166-2	Arrondissements	Cantons	Communities	Inhabitants (year)	Area (km²)	Density (inh / km²)
Aisne	Laon	FR-02	5	42	816	534.490 (2017)	7,369	72.5
Oise	Beauvais	FR-60	4th	41	693	824.503 (2017)	5,860	140.7
Somme	Amiens	FR-80	4th	46	782	572,443 (2017)	6,170	92.8

economy

In comparison with the GDP of the European Union expressed in purchasing power standards , the region achieved an index of 86.3 in 2006 (EU-27 = 100).

The working age population is 744,000. The unemployment rate of 11.5% is slightly above the French average of 10.6%. In Picardy, 9.2% of employees work in agriculture, 40.7% in industry and 50.1% in the service sector. The average income in Picardy is 89% of the national average, making it one of the four lowest-income regions in France. The proportion of employees with a diploma in the Picardy population is 10.6%, below the French average of 14.2%.

See also

• List of Presidents of the Picardy Regional Council since 1986

literature

• Horst Heynemann: Picardy travel book: from the Aisne to the Oise - from the Somme to the English Channel. Meyer & Meyer, Aachen 1999, ISBN 3-89124-558-0 .
• Edouard Louis: The End of Eddy. Autobiographical novel. From the French by Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel; Frankfurt a. M., 2016

Web links

Commons : Picardy  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Picardy region (French)
• Picardy: The other north of France - Official website of France
• Literature on Picardy in the catalog of the German National Library
• Information about Picardy on thueringen.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Nord-Pas-de-Calais - Picardy: bâtissons la grande région
2. ↑ Eurostat press release 23/2009: Regional GDP per inhabitant in the EU27 (PDF file; 360 kB)

Coordinates: 49 ° 34 '  N , 2 ° 45'  E