Picardy

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Picardy
Former French Region (until 2015)
Flag of the former Picardy region Coat of arms of the former Picardy region
Nord-Pas-de-Calais Picardie Champagne-Ardenne Lothringen Elsass Haute-Normandie Basse-Normandie Bretagne Centre-Val de Loire Ile-de-France Burgund Franche-Comté Pays de la Loire Poitou-Charentes Limousin Aquitanien Midi-Pyrénées Languedoc-Roussillon Auvergne Rhône-Alpes Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Korsika Andorra Monaco Liechtenstein Österreich Luxemburg Belgien Niederlande Vereinigtes Königreich Deutschland Schweiz Italien Guernsey Jersey SpanienLocation of the former Picardy region in France
About this picture
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
000000000534490.0000000000534.490 (2017)
000000000007369.00000000007,369 000000000000072.500000000072.5
Oise Beauvais FR-60 4th 41 693
000000000824503.0000000000824.503 (2017)
000000000005860.00000000005,860 000000000000140.7000000000140.7
Somme Amiens FR-80 4th 46 782
000000000572443.0000000000572,443 (2017)
000000000006170.00000000006,170 000000000000092.800000000092.8

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

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

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