Ile-de-France

History

The area of Ile-de-France was born from the royal field made up since the 10th century by the kings Capétiens.

Its name can appear rather mysterious, l'" island " from France being located in open ground. It seems that this name indicates the spit of land delimited by Oise, the Marne and the Seine. Another explanation sees in " Island of France" a deterioration of " Liddle Franke" , i.e. " Small France" in Franque language. This area is indeed the ground of rooting of the People Francs, of Germanic origin, after their penetration in Gaulle, at the time of the Great invasions.

Its limits varied until the end of the Ancien Mode. This province extended towards the west and especially north and was less vast than today in direction of the east and the south. It formed the zone of economic interests of the commercial corporations of Paris, which contributed to fix contours of them.

At the 17th century, a big number of inhabitants came to colonize in News-France (Quebec), in particular famous the Filles of Roy .

It was cut out, following the Révolution, in three departments: the Seine, Seine-et-Oise and Seine-et-Marne. The area was reconstituted after 1945 and administrative decentralization starting from 1964, then political in 1982 consolidated old the Province S. In 1965, under the vigorous action of Paul Delouvrier with the head of the District of the Paris region, the number of departments was carried from three to eight, including Paris. One of them, that of Seine-et-Marne, occupies about half of the regional surface. Around Paris, the Hauts-de-Seine, the Seine-Saint-Denis and the the Valley-of-Marne form the small crown. The departments of the Val-d'Oise, of the Yvelines, the the Essonne and the Seine-et-Marne constitute the large crown. The objective of this administrative reform was eminently political: it was a question of dismantling the department of the Seine, from which the Préfet had almost as much to be able that the Prime Minister. This competition with the head of the capital area was considered to be harmful by De Gaulle and Michel Debré, Prime Minister for the time to undertake the installation of the Paris region (“to give of the order”). Thus, in 1965, the team of Delouvrier carries out the Master development plan and town planning of the area of Paris (SDAURP), a document of space Planification ambitious, which deeply reorganizes the face and the operation of the capital area: constitution of a Network Regional express (the RER) and creation of the new cities (Évry, Marne-the-Valley, Cergy-Pontoise, Saint-Quentin-in-Yvelines and Melun-Sénart).

The district of the Paris region became the area Île-de-France in 1976.

Administration

Policy

See also: Political of the Ile-de-France

Geography

This French area of a surface of 12 072 km ², shelter the capital of France: Paris (75). In 1999, it counted 11 million inhabitants, that is to say approximately 19% of the French population.

Environment

Although very urbanized and in spite of the éco-landscape fragmentation of most of the territory (by the roads) and of the large valleys (the Seine, Marne, and Oise) (by the urbanization) thanks to large main forests (285 000 ha including 87.000 ha of public forest) and many large city parks which girdles almost the area in the south, this territory less lost biodiversity than certain zones of intensive agriculture of surface equivalent more to north. This belt forms a tank of biodiversity, mainly made up of Vexin, forests of Rambouillet and Yvelines, connected by valleys of the Essonne and certain loops of the Seine, located like elements of the national ecological Réseau.

According to its regional environmental Profile the Ile-de-France east from the point of view of the biodiversity in a situation average on a continent of Europe scale, richer than the areas of North, but less than those of the south. A network relictuel and fragile, to consolidate biological corridors allowed a minimum of animal and vegetable discrepancies between the large cores of nature (main forests, wetlands) by the Chart of the biological corridors of regional interest

Transport

See also: Transport in Ile-de-France, Trade union of transport of Ile-de-France, Professional organization of transport of Ile-de-France, Governed autonomous of Parisian transport, Transilien,

Higher education

Economy

Distribution of employment in the 3 sectors (in %):

Primary: 0,30
Secondary: 17,90
Tertiary: 81,80

In the 4th quarter 2006, the Ile-de-France had an unemployment rate of 8,1% with an active population of 5.505.000 inhabitants.

Demography

The inhabitants of the Île-de-France area bear the name of Francilien S. The island of France has a density of 917,4 hab/km ².