Indre-et-Loire
| Indre-et-Loire | |
|---|---|
| — Department — | |
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| Coordinates: 47°15′N 00°40′E / 47.25°N 0.667°ECoordinates: 47°15′N 00°40′E / 47.25°N 0.667°E | |
| Country | France |
| Region | Centre |
| Prefecture | Tours |
| Subprefectures | Chinon Loches |
| Government | |
| • President of the General Council | Marisol Touraine (Socialist Party) |
| Area1 | |
| • Total | 6,127 km2 (2,365.6 sq mi) |
| Population (2007) | |
| • Total | 583,086 |
| • Rank | 41st |
| • Density | 95.2/km2 (246.5/sq mi) |
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) |
| • Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) |
| Department number | 37 |
| Arrondissements | 3 |
| Cantons | 37 |
| Communes | 277 |
| ^1 French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km2 |
Indre-et-Loire (French pronunciation: [ɛ̃dʁ‿e lwaʁ]) is a department in west-central France named after the Indre and the Loire rivers.
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[edit] History
Indre-et-Loire is one of the original 83 départements created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from the former province of Touraine.
Tours, the departmental prefecture, was a center of learning in the early Middle Ages.
After the creation of the department it remained politically conservative, as Honoré de Balzac recorded in several of his novels. Conservative Tours refused to welcome the railways which instead were obliged to route their lines by way of Saint-Pierre-des-Corps on the city's eastern edge. The moderate temper of the department's politics remained apparent after the trauma of 1870: sentiment remained pro-royalist during the early years of the Third Republic.
For most of the nineteenth century Indre-et-Loire was a rural department, but pockets of heavy-duty industrialisation began to appear towards century's end, accompanied by left-wing politics. 1920 saw the birth of the French Communist Party at the Congress of Tours. By 1920 Saint-Pierre-des-Corps had become a major railway junction and a centre of railway workshops: it had also acquired a reputation as a bastion of working class solidarity.
[edit] Geography
Indre-et-Loire is part of the current region of Centre (Val de Loire) and is surrounded by the départements of Loir-et-Cher, Indre, Vienne, Maine-et-Loire, and Sarthe.
[edit] Politics
The President of the General Council is Marisol Touraine of the Socialist Party.
| Party | seats | |
|---|---|---|
| • | Socialist Party | 18 |
| Miscellaneous Right | 8 | |
| Union for a Popular Movement | 5 | |
| • | Miscellaneous Left | 2 |
| New Centre | 2 | |
| • | French Communist Party | 1 |
[edit] Tourism
Indre-et-Loire is home to numerous outstanding châteaux that are open to the public, among them are the following:
- Château d'Amboise
- Château of Azay-le-Rideau
- Château de la Bourdaisière
- Château de Chenonceau
- Château de Chinon
- Château de la Guerche
- Château de Langeais
- Château de Loches
- Château de Marçay
- Château de Montpoupon
- Château de Plessis-lez-Tours
- Château du Rivau
- Château de Tours
- Château de Villandry
[edit] See also
- Cantons of the Indre-et-Loire department
- Communes of the Indre-et-Loire department
- Arrondissements of the Indre-et-Loire department
[edit] External links
- (French) Prefecture website
- (French) General Council website
- (English) Indre-et-Loire at the Open Directory Project
- (French) Official tourist website of Touraine Loire Valley
