Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, a new region

The Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region is one of the 13 new regions created with the territorial reform that took effect on January 1, 2016.

Until then Rhône-Alpes and Auvergne were two separate regions.

Auvergne corresponds to the historical province of Auvergne.

It includes also part of the ancient provinces of Bourbonnais, Velay, Gévaudan, Vivarais and Forez.

It consists of four departments:

Allier (03 - Moulins), Cantal (15 - Aurillac), Haute-Loire (43 - Le Puy-en-Velay) and Puy de Dôme (63 - Clermond-Ferrant).

It was named after the Gallic tribe Arveni.

It covers an area of 26,013 km², nearly 5% of Metropolitan France.

It has 1,341,000 inhabitants and is one of the least populated regions in Europe.

Rhône-Alpes was named after the river Rhône and the Alps mountain range.

It covered an area of 43,698 km2 and has nearly 6.3 million inhabitants.

It includes 8 departments:

Ain (01 - Bourg-en-Bresse), Ardèche (07 - Privas), Drôme (26 - Valence), Isère (38 - Grenoble), Loire (42 - st-Etienne), Rhône (69 - Lyon), Savoie (73 - Chambéry), Haute-Savoie (74 - Annecy) and the Metropolis of Lyon (69M) which is also the regional préfecture.

Area: 69,711 km2
Population: 7,695.264 (01/01/2012)

Credits Photos: map region by Oie blanche is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0