Loiret

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Loiret

Coat of arms of the Loiret department
Location

Administration
Department number:	45
Region:	Centre
Prefecture:	Orléans
Subprefectures:	Montargis Pithiviers
Arrondissements:	3
Cantons:	41
Communes:	334
President of the General Council:	Eric Doligé UMP
Statistics
Population	Ranked 35th
-1999	618,126
Population density:	91/km²
Land area¹:	6775 km²

¹ French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km².

Loiret is a department in north-central France named after the Loiret River.

1 History
2 Geography
3 Tourism
4 Miscellaneous
- 4.1 English Speaking Expatriates
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] History

Loiret is one of the original 83 departments that was created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from the former province of Orléanais.

[edit] Geography

Loiret is part of the current region of Centre (Val de Loire) and is surrounded by the departments of Seine-et-Marne, Yonne, Nièvre, Cher, Loir-et-Cher, and Eure-et-Loir.

[edit] Tourism

Orléans is a popular tourist destination, with its cathedral of St. Croix.

[edit] Miscellaneous

[edit] English Speaking Expatriates

Banlieue towns of the Île de France tend to depend a lot on Paris for administration purposes and other facilities. The centre of Paris is also a haven for several English speaking nationalities and EU expatriates, however in outlying towns such as this one there isn't the network that caters for these groups.

Generally, via the internet, a look on services such as Yahoo Groups can yield a few useful resources with expat groups such as Live in France, English Speakers in France, Paris Sud or Webvivant. All of these can provide much needed advice and friendship to English speaking residents of the Île de France.