The cantons of France – www.house-siam.com – (French pronunciation: [kɑ̃tɔ̃] ⓘ) are territorial subdivisions of the French Republic’s departments and arrondissements.

Apart from their function as organizational items in relation to certain facets of the administration of public services and justice, the chief objective of the cantons at this time is to serve as constituencies for the election of members of the representative assemblies established in every of France’s territorial departments (departmental councils, previously common councils). Because of this, such elections had been recognized in France as “cantonal elections”, till 2015 when their title was modified to “departmental elections” to match the departmental councils’ name.

There are 2,054 cantons in France.[1]

Most of them group together plenty of communes (the bottom administrative division of the French Republic), though larger communes could also be included in more than one canton, because the cantons – in marked distinction to the communes, which have between greater than two million inhabitants (Paris) and only one individual (Rochefourchat) – are intended to be roughly equal in dimension of population for electoral purposes.

Position and administration
[edit]
The role of the canton is, basically, to supply a framework for departmental elections. Every canton elects a lady and a man to symbolize it on the conseil départemental du département – or departmental council for the department, which is the principal administrative division of the French Republic.

In city areas, a single commune generally contains several cantons. Within the latter case, administrative companies, the gendarmerie headquarters for example, are often situated within the principal town (chef-lieu) of the canton, although there are exceptions, akin to cantons Gaillon-Campagne and Sarreguemines-Campagne, which have in frequent a “chief-city” which does not belong to either canton. Conversely, in rural areas, a canton might comprise several smaller communes.

For statistical (INSEE) functions, the twenty arrondissements of Paris – the administrative subdivisions of that city – are generally considered cantons, however they serve no better electoral operate.[2]

Cantons also form authorized districts, as seats of Tribunaux d’occasion (TI) or Courts of First Occasion. Historically, the cantons are known as justices de paix or “district courts”.

Historical past
[edit]
The cantons had been created in 1790 at the identical time as the départements by the Revolutionary Committee for the Division of Territory (Comité de division). After the abolition of the district in 1800, they have been reorganized by the Consulate into arrondissements. The variety of cantons was then drastically reduced (between 30 and 50 models) by the Loi du eight pluviôse an IX (28 January 1801), or the “Regulation for the Reduction of the Variety of District Courts”, or Loi portant réduction du nombre de justices de paix in French. On the entire, their number elevated appreciably. They had been more numerous than immediately (between 40 and 60 to each département). Cantons have been, at first, grouped into what have been known as districts. The département lists, once approved by the federal government, were revealed in the Bulletin des lois in 1801 and 1802; these lists were the idea of the administrative divisions of France from then until 2015, though cantons with small populations have been eradicated and new cantons created in areas of strong demographic growth. The département prefects had been advised by the government to group the communes within newly established cantons.

In May 2013 a law was adopted that decreased the variety of cantons drastically. [3] This law got here into effect at the French departmental elections in March 2015. Before the cantonal reform, there have been 4,032 cantons; afterwards there were 2,054, with the cantons in Martinique and Guyana abolished. [4][5] The 2013 reform legislation also changed the representation of the cantons in the departmental councils: every canton is now represented by a man and a woman. [3]

Statistics
[edit]
The number of cantons varies from one département to a different. The Territoire de Belfort has the fewest at 9, while Nord has essentially the most at 41. The average determine is about 21.[6]

Canton (administrative division)

^ Roger Brunet (2015). “New cantons in France: Name video games”. L’Espace Géographique. 44. doi:10.3917/eg.441.0073.

^ INSEE, Populations légales 2012 des cantons – découpage 2015

^ a b LOI n° 2013-403 du 17 mai 2013 relative à l’élection des conseillers départementaux, des conseillers municipaux et des conseillers communautaires, et modifiant le calendrier électoral

^ Code officiel géographique au 1er janvier 2013, INSEE

^ Code officiel géographique au 1er janvier 2016, INSEE

^ Primarily based on 2,054 cantons divided by one hundred departments.

Cantons of France by department

Record of cantons of France

Mainland France

Ain

Aisne

Allier

Alpes-de-Haute-Provence

Hautes-Alpes

Alpes-Maritimes

Ardèche

Ardennes

Ariège

Aube

Aude

Aveyron

Bouches-du-Rhône

Calvados

Cantal

Charente

Charente-Maritime

Cher

Corrèze

Corse-du-Sud

Haute-Corse

Côte-d’Or

Côtes-d’Armor

Creuse

Dordogne

Doubs

Drôme

Eure

Eure-et-Loir

Finistère

Gard

Haute-Garonne

Gers

Gironde

Hérault

Ille-et-Vilaine

Indre

Indre-et-Loire

Isère

Jura

Landes

Loir-et-Cher

Loire

Haute-Loire

Loire-Atlantique

Loiret

Lot

Lot-et-Garonne

Lozère

Maine-et-Loire

Manche

Marne

Haute-Marne

Mayenne

Meurthe-et-Moselle

Meuse

Morbihan

Moselle

Nièvre

Nord

Oise

Orne

Pas-de-Calais

Puy-de-Dôme

Pyrénées-Atlantiques

Hautes-Pyrénées

Pyrénées-Orientales

Bas-Rhin

Haut-Rhin

Rhône

Haute-Saône

Saône-et-Loire

Sarthe

Savoie

Haute-Savoie

Seine-Maritime

Seine-et-Marne

Yvelines

Deux-Sèvres

Somme

Tarn

Tarn-et-Garonne

Var

Vaucluse

Vendée

Vienne

Haute-Vienne

Vosges

Yonne

Territoire de Belfort

Essonne

Hauts-de-Seine

Seine-Saint-Denis

Val-de-Marne

Val-d’Oise

Overseas France

Guadeloupe

Martinique

Guyane

Réunion

Mayotte

Articles on fourth-stage administrative divisions of nations

People’s Republic of China

Republic of China

Ward

Village tract

England

Northern Eire

Scotland

Wales

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Fourth-level administrative divisions by country

Use dmy dates from January 2022

This web page was last edited on 25 August 2025, at 13:38 (UTC).

Cantons of France

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