Talk:Provinces of France

How exhaustive is this list? - User:Olivier

The map here is misleading. What is being listed are certainly not generalités, which were the units of the Intendants. For instance, Anjou, Touraine, and Maine were all in a single generalité. This is closer to the map of gouvernements, that is to say, areas with a military governor. But even that doesn't seem to be quite right, since I think that (for instance) Saumurois, Paris, the Lorraine Bishoprics ought to be separated out, Angoumois and Saintonge ought to be joined together.

Here is a map of the gouvernements, for reference, although I don't know how accurate it is, as I've seen different versions. john k 08:59, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The map also confuses the feudal territories annexed by the French kings with the provinces as of the 18th century. For instance, it calls what is clearly the gouvernement/province of Guyenne and Gascony as "Aquitaine," which is just wrong. john k 09:02, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Of course the article is totally and UTERLY wrong, because there existed no such thing as "provinces" in France before the French Revolution. Provinces were never official, and depend on the point of view of the person who refer to them. Someone may consider Albigeois as a province, another person may not, and so on. Before the Revolution there existed gouvernements (military areas), which is what people most often refer to when they talk about provinces, although gouvernement are not exactly the same as provinces. There were also généralités, the most important administrative unit, which did not really correspond to provinces. There were also territories that had provincial states, they were called pays d'état, and this is what comes closest to a "province", but only a third of France had provincial states, and their jurisdiction was only in tax matters. There were also parlements for judicial matters. Parlements sometimes corresponded to provinces, and sometimes not. Finally, there were bishoprics for religious matter (which was a state matter back then, not a private one), and the bishoprics ususally did not correspond to provinces, although there are exceptions. The matter is very complicated, and soon I will make a very long edit to clarify this. However, I don't know how to edit the map, which is a wrong map. There should be a map for each of the units that I just listed, and also a tentative map of "provinces", although we will never reach a full consensus, as there will always be people to consider this or that as a province, and other who won't. But we should try a tentative map anyway. One example: Quercy is definitely perceived as a province by its inhabitants. However, it was part of the gouvernement of Guienne-Gascony; it was part of the généralité of Montauban (which is larger than just Quercy); it had lost its provincial states; most of it was under the jurisdiction of the parlement of Toulouse but the very north of Quercy was under the jurisdiction of the parlement of Bordeaux; and finally it was divided between the bishopric of Montauban and the bishopric of Cahors (and maybe more, I am not sure). And to make things worse, I think that the bishopric of Montauban included parts of Quercy, and parts outside of Quercy. So Quercy would not appear on any map showing gouvernements, généralités, provincial states, parlements, or bishoprics, but it should definitely appear on a tentative map of the provinces. On the other hand, unlike what the article says, pays ("countries") are definitely NOT provinces. For instance, the province of Ile-de-France was made up of many pays, such as Hurepoix, Vexin Français, Parisis, and so on. These are not provinces. Hope this helps. If anyone wants to help me out with the maps, please message me. Thanks. Hardouin 20:20, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree with Hardouin, this page doesn't quite make sense, and is trying to simplify into provinces a complex territorial administrative structure used by the ancien regime which had many overlaps. The best solution would be to list, in seperate sections, généralités, parlements, and gouvernements which were the main units of territory. I dont think ecclesiastical provinces and bishoprics are relevant. Pays d'état were, as i understand it, a form of generality, alongside pays d'election and something else i dont remember, not a seperate category. i am adding a map from the french page. N-edits 15:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The usage of the word province is correct in the modern english sense for the large easily defined territories (Normandy, Anjou, Guyenne). This is an english encyclopaedic article. All the English books of the last 200 years have referred to these greater ancient regions in France as "provinces", or by their specific names like Duchy or County. Geez, even the Romans called them provincias. The smaller adminstrative areas in the provinces are correctlty referred to as lordship, county, barony, commune or pays, or by other names in english where possible. Pays  is used in english in the place of country as this does not have relevant meaning in english, where the closest approximation would be countryside or land of CJ DUB 13:48, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

look look provences of france is la normandie, la bretagne, l' alsace, la touraine,la provence. easy as that.!

Pays, région, province and contrée
Meanings in modern French (in France at least) : Liam D 14:54, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Pays :
 * country : such as the UK, the US, Belgium, Germany, etc.
 * part of an ancient province : meaning still used today but with "pays de" as part of the name of the area e.g. Pays de Caux, or Pays de France (which still refers to an area of the département of Val-d'Oise in the région Ile-de-France, hence the name of the towns Roissy-en-France, Mareil-en-France, Puiseux-en-France, Belloy-en-France, Châtenay-en-France, etc).
 * Pays de Galles means Wales (Galles alone can't be used, except in Prince de Galles).
 * Région :
 * modern-day administrative aera of France;
 * any region (geograpical, hitorical, as in English) and even an ancient province.
 * Province :
 * "la province": in France, that's France excluding Ile-de-France (most common meaning in France today). "Ma famille vit en province" is a very common sentence in Paris!
 * modern-day administrative area of Belgium and Canada.
 * refers to the ancient "administrative" regions of Ancien Régime France (mainly, duchies and counties).
 * contrée: no longer used today, except often ironically as lost or remote countryside area.

Here's another set of words to confuse it even further: feud, feudatories, feodatoires. Hahah. I don't think the french terms or menaing matter as much. We should try and get a representative term which has some meaning in english. I think in the modern english usage, province is accepable. One serious alternative could be "lordship" CJ DUB 13:41, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Missing province
Lower Navarre seems to be missing. Sorry I'm no historian so I don't know how to fix this omission. I'm just pointing it out in case someone can fix it. If I'm off the mark, then feel free to ignore/delete this note. Raichu2 (talk) 01:31, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Lower Navarre is often considered a part of Bearn and/or Gascony (Gascony and Basque have the same root, FWIW, Navarre being the traditional homeland of the Basque peoples). If you look at the map in the article, it is clearly part of Bearn by that map.  As noted in the article itself, what were and were not "provinces" at various times in French history are somewhat fluid.  The map shows the borders and names of Provinces as they existed when the system was abolished, and by that time I am fairly certain that Basse-Navarre was considered a lesser part of Bearn.  -- Jayron  32  02:48, 15 June 2013 (UTC)