History UsefulNotes / DepartementalIssues

The capital is Cayenne, but the economic heart is Kourou and its European Space Center, from where the ''Ariane'' rockets are lauched. French Guiana is also known for still having gold prospectors and having been the location of the most infamously renowned French penal colony, the "Bagne de Cayenne", from which [[Creator/SteveMcQueenActor Steve McQueen]] and Creator/DustinHoffman [[Film/{{Papillon}} once escaped]]. It was nicknamed "''la guillotine sèche''" (the dry guillotine), for crying out loud! The economic situation is notably worse than in mainland France but better than in many countries of the region. Ahead of the 2017 Presidential elections there were major youth protests against economic woes and France's "hands off" approach at governing, which brought non Kourou related news about the department into European focus for the first time in ages. Still, independence is if anything a fringe movement without political relevance.

->A rural department that largely thrives on the wine industry and based on the former province of Nivernais, its capital, Nevers, is home to a cathedral literally made of two earlier ones patched together, as well as the final resting place of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernadette_Soubirous St. Bernadette Soubirous]], the recipient of visions attributed to the Virgin Mary at the town of Lourdes farther south.

Those régions used to be colonies but 4 were made into départements shortly after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII at their inhabitants request (Mayotte became one in 2011). When régions were created in 1983, each of these also became a région on top of being a département.

->Halfway between Bordeaux and Paris, the capital Poitiers is a bustling university city, as well as home to the Futuroscope theme park. The department was also home to the original Acadians, early French immigrants to what is now Nova Scotia in Canada during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Merged from three major regions--Alsace, Lorraine, and Champagne-Ardenne. For centuries Alsace and Lorraine, known in German as, respectively, "Elsass" and "Lothringen" (though the latter applied only to one-fourth of the area, covering what is now Moselle), constantly changed hands between France and Germany (France since the UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar; UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany in 1871 after the UsefulNotes/FrancoPrussianWar; France in 1919 after UsefulNotes/WorldWarI; UsefulNotes/NaziGermany in 1940, at the start of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII; and back to France in 1945 at the end of the latter war), as well as being unusual for being the home of many Frenchmen with Swiss German heritage. In contrast, the latter region is a patchwork of the historic province of Champagne (obviously famous for its wine-making industry) and the Ardennes forest.

->Named after a heavily-wooded valley cut by the Meuse river, giving it a strategic importance that never went unseen throughout the two World Wars--in the first, AcePilot Roland Garros (namesake of the tennis centre in Paris which hosts the French Open) was shot down, and in the runoff to the second, this was the northern end of the UsefulNotes/MaginotLine. The capital Charleville-Mézières is home to pre-surrealist author [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rimbaud Arthur Rimbaud]], as well as a medieval fair.

->Home to the Champagne vineyards and their famed sparkling wine, gathered in the town of Épernay. Near Châlons-en-Champagne is a military camp which served both as training grounds and exhibition centre, while Reims is a cathedral town where most Kings of France were crowned, from Henry I in 1027 to Charles X in 1825 (British readers, think Westminster Abbey, only French and Catholic).

->An otherwise quiet department mostly known for Lake Der-Chantecoq, the largest manmade lake in Europe and its game-rich forests appreciated by hunters. The capital Chaumont bore witness to an accord between Prussia, Russia, Britain, and Austria refusing any peace deal with UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte, leading to his final defeat at Waterloo. The town of Colombey-les-Deux-Églises was also UsefulNotes/CharlesDeGaulle's home for the last years of his life.

->The capital Nancy was the centre of Lorraine, and is the birthplace of art nouveau.

->Another department carved out of Lorraine. The strategic valley around Verdun saw its fair share of conflict, but one during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI saw one of the worst battles of attrition in history, claiming over 700,000 Frenchmen and Germans in the span of almost ''all'' of 1916.

->Moselle is a center of Lorraine culture, and Metz has both a very old city centre, a policy of eco-friendly urban planning, and home to the oldest active theatre in France. The département shared the same fate as Alsace between 1871 and 1945, changing hands several times between France and Germany (when you say "Alsace-Lorraine", the "Lorraine" part is actually only Moselle).

->The more populous of the two Alsatian departments, its capital Strasbourg is home to the [[UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion European Parliament]] (largely as a symbolic gesture given Alsace's history as a flashpoint of Franco-German conflict), as well as the second-largest cathedral in France (after that in Rouen) and the birthplace of Creator/GustaveDore, Creator/MarcelMarceau, fashion designer Thierry Mugler, Creator/GermainMuller, Creator/TomiUngerer and [[UsefulNotes/BritishFootyTeams Arsène Wenger]], among others. Facing the German border is Ouvrage Schoenenbourg, the largest visitable fortification of the UsefulNotes/MaginotLine.