Regions

«Regional means diversity and national means unity.» Alain Rey

Region is a word used by administrators and suggests cutting France up. There are 22 regions in mainland France and 4 overseas.

The idea of a province dates back to France in olden days. Each region consists of several départements. Alsace is the smallest region (8,300km2) and Midi-Pyrénées the biggest (45,300km2).

French cuisine doesn’t respect administrative borders but there are local specialities with names reflecting France as it was before being divided into regions:

• Le gratin dauphinois (sliced potatoes baked with cream, from Dauphiné)
• La daube provençale (a kind of casserole, from Provence)
• L’entrecôte bordelaise (steak from Bordeaux)
• L’escalope normande (escalope from Normandy)
• La potée auvergnate (boiled meat with cabbage, from the Auvergne)
• La ficelle picarde (a long thin loaf from Picardy)
• Le biscuit de Savoie (a kind of biscuit from Savoy)
• Les crêpes bretonnes (pancakes from Brittany)

Which regions do foreign tourists prefer?

An opinion poll of foreign tourists gave the following result:

• La Provence-Côte d’Azur (PACA)
• Rhône-Alpes
• Le Languedoc-Roussillon
• La Bretagne
• L’Aquitaine