Puy-de-Dôme
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Puy-de-Dôme | |
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| Coat of arms of the Puy-de-Dôme department | |
| Location | |
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| Administration | |
| Department number: | 63 |
| Region: | Auvergne |
| Prefecture: | Clermont-Ferrand |
| Subprefectures: | Ambert Issoire Riom Thiers |
| Arrondissements: | 5 |
| Cantons: | 61 |
| Communes: | 470 |
| President of the General Council: | Jean-Yves Gouttebel |
| Statistics | |
| Population | Ranked 36th |
| -1999 | 604,266 |
| Population density: | 76/km² |
| Land area¹: | 7970 km² |
| ¹ French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km². | |
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Puy-de-Dôme is a department in the center of France named after the famous dormant volcano, the Puy-de-Dôme.
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[edit] History
Puy-de-Dôme is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from the former province of Auvergne. Originally, the department was to be called Mont d'Or ("golden mountain"), but this was judged not to be a very egalitarian name.
[edit] Geography
Puy-de-Dôme is part of the current region of Auvergne and is surrounded by the departments of Loire, Haute-Loire, Cantal, Corrèze, and Creuse.
The department is in the Massif Central and boasts more than 80 volcanic craters.
It is three hours from Paris and an hour from Lyon by highways A71 and A72. The A75 links it to the Mediterranean Sea.
Main cities are Clermont-Ferrand, Thiers, Riom, Issoire, Ambert and Cournon-d'Auvergne.
[edit] See also
- Cantons of the Puy-de-Dôme department
- Communes of the Puy-de-Dôme department
- Arrondissements of the Puy-de-Dôme department
[edit] External links
- (French) Prefecture website
- (French) General Council website
