Pauline,
The regions and départements of France are exactly parallel to the regioni and province of Italy; although the Italian regions, and to some extent the provinces, have a more real historical existence than the French units. The départements were intentionally created under the revolution as brainwashing, to break down the natural "pays" and "province" system. When the départements were seen in the mid 20c as too small for modern coördination and planning, the government introduced the regions, top-down like almost everything in France, by merely agglomerating the départements. In Italy by and large, the provinces are the reverse: subdivisions of the regions, which are the true historical "provinces" of the country.
The départements are further broken down into
communes, equivalent to the comuni of Italy; the subdivisions of the communes are the
cantons, corresponding to the frazioni in Italy.
But even 200 years later, the French still think largely in terms of the old provinces, which it is thus useful to know. Thus people speak of the Dauphiné, Saintonge, Gascogne, etc.; and at the
pays level, of the Vexin, Comminges, Queyras, etc. Almost none of these is found in a list of modern
région names (exceptions: Alsace, Languedoc, one or two others) -- but you'll often see the
pays names especially as part of the names of little towns: Magny-en-Vexin, St-Bertrand-de-Comminges, etc.
Bill
Gazetteer of Europe[This message was edited by Bill Thayer on January 06, 2003 at 06:51 AM.]
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