| Loire | |
|---|---|
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| Coat of arms of the Loire department | |
| Location | |
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| Administration | |
| Department number: | 42 |
| Region: | Rhône-Alpes |
| Prefecture: | Saint-Étienne |
| Subprefectures: | Montbrison Roanne |
| Arrondissements: | 3 |
| Cantons: | 40 |
| Communes: | 327 |
| President of the General Council: | Pascal Clément |
| Statistics | |
| Population | Ranked 27th |
| -1999 | 728,524 |
| Population density: | 152/km² |
| Land area¹: | 4781 km² |
| ¹ French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km². | |
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This article is about the French department. For the river, see Loire River. For the valley, see Loire Valley.
Loire (Arpitan: Lêre, Occitan: Léger) is an administrative department in the east-central part of France occupying the River Loire's upper reaches.
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History
Loire was created in 1793 when the original department of Rhône-et-Loire was split. Its capitals have been the following:
- Feurs from 1793-1795
- Montbrison from 1795-1855
- Saint-Étienne since 1855
Geography
Loire is part of the current administrative region of Rhône-Alpes and is surrounded by the departments of Rhône, Isère, Ardèche, Haute-Loire, Puy-de-Dôme, Allier, and Saône-et-Loire. The River Loire traverses the department from south to north. The Loire department is split into three arrondissements:
Demographics
The inhabitants of the department are called Ligériens. The industrial city of Saint-Étienne with its suburbs contains some 290,000 of the area's 728,542 inhabitants.
External links
- (French) Prefecture website
- (French) General Council website
