Click each of the 101 French departments on the map. Can you name them all?
France is divided into 101 departments — 96 in metropolitan France and 5 overseas. The system was created during the French Revolution in 1790, when the old provinces of the monarchy were replaced by roughly equal-sized units, each named after a geographical feature, usually a river or a mountain. The idea was radical simplicity: every citizen should be able to reach the prefecture in a single day's ride on horseback.
The names tell their own story. Finistère means "end of the earth", Côtes-d'Armor references the Breton coastline, and Bouches-du-Rhône marks where the Rhône meets the Mediterranean. Some departments are famous — everyone has heard of the Gironde or the Alpes-Maritimes — while others, like Creuse or Lozère, remain quietly unknown even to most French people. Paris itself is a single department (75), surrounded by the seven departments of the petite and grande couronne.
Overseas, French territory extends to Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Réunion and Mayotte, each with its own departmental number. Naming all 101 is one of the classic French geography challenges — and a genuine test of how well you know the hexagone and beyond.
