Fruitfulness of the areas of France

Evolution of the fruitfulness of the French areas

In the following table, the areas of Metropolitan France with fertility rates higher of 0,02 points than the metropolitan average, and thus regarded as areas with high fruitfulness were posted in bold characters for the year 2003.

Sources: INSEE and.

Let us note that the Fertility rate of the Metropolitan France was estimated at 1,98 in 2006. As for that of whole France, it was established the same year with 2,005.

Zones of high fertility in Metropolitan France

In years 1950-1960 the areas of high fertility geographically formed a crescent bordering France of the North-West in the North-East, which one called the " growing fertile" by allusion to the fertility of the women who resided at it. This crescent of high fruitfulness, left the Pays of the Loire (the Vendée) and Brittany, went up the coasts of the English Channel towards the North-East, via the High and the Basse-Normandie, the Eure-et-Loir and the Picardy, and circumvented the Île-de-France by north, including the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, from where it curved towards south-east, passing by the Champagne, the Lorraine and the Alsace, then inflected towards the south and finished in Franche-Comté. On the whole the southern half of France and the Ile de France had a fruitfulness definitely less than the remainder of the country.

Years 1970-1975 saw a general collapse of fruitfulness in Western Europe, and France did not escape the movement. However, a general phenomenon of homogenization of fruitfulness in the various areas of metropolis took place which contributed to bring the rate closer to the southernmost areas of the national average. Fruitfulness dropped less where it was weak but extremely dropped where it was raised, and overall, the difference between the most fertile areas and least fertile was strongly reduced of this fact. In particular them areas Provence-Alp-Coast-with Azur, Ile-de-France and the Rhone-Alps are those which knew the weakest reduction in fruitfulness between the end of the year 1960 and the years 1974-1976. Fruitfulness even started to go up in these areas starting from the middle of the years 1970, whereas on average it dropped elsewhere.

Today the north-eastern part of the crescent subsided (Alsace, Lorraine and partially Champagne) and this crescent thus does not exist more. However all North-West of France from the Vendée and Brittany to the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and at the department of the Ardennes and the Meuse, including/understanding in more the Eure-et-Loir and the Ile-de-France, always constitutes the zone of higher fruitfulness of the country. One can from now on speak about a " triangle fertile" provided with a long North-South appendix directed, energy of the Ardennes to banks of the Mediterranean and formed of north in the south of the departments of the Ardennes, of the Meuse, of Haute-Marne and the Vosges, then of the Franche-Comté and the Rhone-Alps, and finishing in area Provence-Alp-Coast of Azure (department of Vaucluse and the VAr). Among these areas, the Countries of the Loire were in 2003, with Picardy, the most powerful areas.

The posterior data are alas very fragmentary. INSEE Brittany however reveals us that in 2005, fruitfulness exceeded the threshold of the fertility rate of 2,0 in 5 areas, with at the head the Countries of the Loire. It acts moreover Nord-Pas-de-Calais, of Picardy, of the Franche-Comté and - surprised Center area which does not stop improving its performances these last years in spite of the two departments of Berry and Touraine somewhat with the drag. This number of areas should logically increase in 2006, following the general rise of fruitfulness observed this year.

References

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