Département de la Seine avant-après 1860

Seine was the former department of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

encompassing

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

and its immediate suburbs. It is the only enclaved department of

at that time. Its prefecture was Paris and its INSEE number was 75. The Seine department was disbanded in 1968 and its territory divided among four new departments:

Hauts-de-Seine Hauts-de-Seine (; ) is a département in the Île-de-France region, Northern France. It covers Paris's western inner suburbs. It is bordered by Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne to the east, Val-d'Oise to the north, Yvelines to the we ...

Seine-Saint-Denis () is a department of France located in the Grand Paris metropolis in the region. In French, it is often referred to colloquially as ' or ' ("ninety-three" or "nine three"), after its official administrative number, 93. Its prefecture is Bob ...

and

Val-de-Marne Val-de-Marne (, "Vale of the Marne") is a department of France located in the Île-de-France region. Named after the river Marne, it is situated in the Grand Paris metropolis to the southeast of the City of Paris. In 2019, Val-de-Marne had a ...

."En 1964 naissaient les nouveaux départements de la petite couronne"
'' La Dépêche'', 10 July 2014.

General characteristics

From 1929 to its abolition in 1968, the department consisted of the City of Paris and 80 surrounding suburban communes. It had an area of 480 km² (185 sq. miles), 22% of that area being the City of Paris and 78% being suburbs. It is the only enclaved department in France. It was divided into three

arrondissements An arrondissement (, , ) is any of various administrative divisions of France, Belgium, Haiti, certain other Francophone countries, as well as the Netherlands. Europe France The 101 French departments are divided into 342 ''arrondissements'' ...

, Sceaux and Saint-Denis. For most of the Seine department's existence, its

prefect Prefect (from the Latin ''praefectus'', substantive adjectival form of ''praeficere'': "put in front", meaning in charge) is a magisterial title of varying definition, but essentially refers to the leader of an administrative area. A prefect's ...

also exercised direct authority over the City of Paris as well. As a result, Paris was the only commune without a

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well as ...

; it had theoretically less autonomy than the smallest commune.

History

Formation

Seine was created on 4 March 1790, as the department of Paris (''Département de Paris''). In 1795, it was renamed as the department of Seine (''Département de la Seine'') after the Seine River flowing through it. At the first census of the

French Republic France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

in 1801, the Seine department had 631,585 inhabitants (87% of them living in the City of Paris, 13% in the suburbs) and was the second most populous department of the vast Napoleonic Empire (behind Nord), more populous than even the dense departments of what is now

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

and the

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. With the growth of Paris and its suburbs over the next 150 years, the population of the Seine department increased tremendously.

Dissolution

By 1968 it contained 5,700,754 residents (45% of them living in the City of Paris, 55% in the suburbs), making it by far the most populous department of France. It was considered that the Seine was now too large to be governed effectively. On 1 January 1968, it was split into four smaller departments:

and

. The break-up of the Seine department involved the following changes: * The city (commune) of Paris was turned into a department in its own right, with no other communes inside this department. The official number 75 which was used for the Seine department was given to the new Paris department. * To the south and southeast of the city, 29 communes of the Seine department were grouped with 18 communes of the Seine-et-Oise department (which was also abolished in 1968) to form the new Val-de-Marne department. The official number 94 was assigned to this department, a number previously used for the Territoires du Sud territory in the

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n part of

French Algeria French Algeria (french: Alger to 1839, then afterwards; unofficially , ar, الجزائر المستعمرة), also known as Colonial Algeria, was the period of French colonisation of Algeria. French rule in the region began in 1830 with the ...

. * To the west of Paris, 27 communes of the Seine department were grouped with nine communes of Seine-et-Oise to form the new Hauts-de-Seine department. The official number 92 was assigned to this department, a number previously used for the department of Oran in French Algeria. * Finally, to the north and northeast the 24 remaining communes of the Seine department were grouped with 16 communes of the Seine-et-Oise department to form the new Seine-Saint-Denis department. The official number 93 was assigned to this department, a number previously used for the department of Constantine in French Algeria. Taken together, Hauts-de-Seine, Val-de-Marne and Seine-Saint-Denis are known in France as the "small ring" (french: Petite Couronne), as opposed to the "large ring" (') of the more distant suburbs. The small ring plus the City of Paris total , more than the former Seine department (). The Métropole du Grand Paris, an administrative structure created in 2016, comprises Paris and the three departments of the ', plus seven additional communes in the '.

Demographics

At the 2006 census, the population of the communes that had previously comprised the Seine department was 5,496,468. The population of the department peaked in 1968 at 5,700,754. It then lost inhabitants until 1999 (with a nadir of 5,203,818 inhabitants at the 1999 census) as residents increasingly relocated to the more distant suburbs of the metropolitan area of Paris, but since 1999 it has regained some inhabitants, with a population increase of 292,650 inhabitants between 1999 and 2006. This new population growth after a long period of decline is comparable to what is observed in the central areas of other large Western metropolises such as

Inner London Inner London is the name for the group of London boroughs which form the interior part of Greater London and are surrounded by Outer London. With its origins in the bills of mortality, it became fixed as an area for statistics in 1847 and was use ...

. Of the new departments created in 1968, Paris was the most populous in 2006 with 2,181,371 inhabitants. The Paris department is currently the second-most populous of France behind that of Nord.

References