1.
Prefectures of France
–
There are 101 prefectures in France, one for each department. The official in charge is the prefect, the prefect represents the national government at the local level and as such exercises the powers that are constitutionally attributed to the national government. The prefect issues ordinances written for the application of law, to close a building that does not conform to safety codes. In the past, the prefect was head of the department, but since 1982, there is an exception in Paris and its three surrounding departments. These departments are administered by a prefecture for law enforcement and security purposes, called the Prefecture of Police. The power of law enforcement is usually invested in the mayor in other French communes, the departments are divided into arrondissements, themselves divided into cantons. The chef-lieu darrondissement is the subprefecture, the official in charge is the subprefect (French, sous-préfet. Cantons have relatively few competences, the most important one being the local organisation of elections, administrative divisions of France French National Police
Prefectures of France
–
Petite Couronne
2.
Communes of France
–
The commune is a level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to civil townships incorporated municipalities in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany, the United Kingdom has no exact equivalent, as communes resemble districts in urban areas, but are closer to parishes in rural areas where districts are much larger. Communes are based on historical geographic communities or villages and have received significant powers of governance to manage the populations, the communes are the fourth-level administrative divisions of France. A French commune may be a city of 2.2 million inhabitants like Paris, communes typically are based on pre-existing villages and facilitate local governance. All communes have names, but not all named geographic areas or groups of people residing together are communes, a commune is a town, city, or municipality. Use of commune in English is a habit, and one that might be corrected. There is nothing in commune in French that is different from town in English. The French word commune appeared in the 12th century, from Medieval Latin communia, as of January 2015, there were 36,681 communes in France,36,552 of them in metropolitan France and 129 of them overseas. This is a higher total than that of any other European country. The whole territory of the French Republic is divided into communes and this is unlike some other countries, such as the United States, where unincorporated areas directly governed by a county or a higher authority can be found. There are only a few exceptions, COM of Saint-Martin and it was previously a commune inside the Guadeloupe région. The commune structure was abolished when Saint-Martin became an overseas collectivity on 22 February 2007, COM of Wallis and Futuna, which still is divided according to the three traditional chiefdoms. It was previously a commune inside the Guadeloupe region, the commune structure was abolished when Saint-Barthélemy became an overseas collectivity on 22 February 2007.88 square kilometres. The median area of metropolitan Frances communes at the 1999 census was even smaller, the median area is a better measure of the area of a typical French commune. This median area is smaller than that of most European countries. In Italy, the area of communes is 22 km2, in Belgium it is 40 km2, in Spain it is 35 km2, and in Germany. Switzerland and the Länder of Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein, and Thuringia in Germany were the places in Europe where the communes had a smaller median area than in France. The communes of Frances overseas départements such as Réunion and French Guiana are large by French standards and they usually group into the same commune several villages or towns, often with sizeable distances among them
Communes of France
–
Road sign marking the end of the village of
Y in the
Somme department of
Picardy
Communes of France
–
Map of the 36,569 communes of metropolitan France
Communes of France
–
Mittelhausbergen in
Alsace
Communes of France
–
Vacqueyras in
Provence, showing double French/
Provençal name
3.
Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
Geographic coordinate system
–
Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
4.
France
–
France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
France
–
One of the
Lascaux paintings: a horse –
Dordogne, approximately 18,000 BC
France
–
Flag
France
–
The
Maison Carrée was a temple of the
Gallo-Roman city of Nemausus (present-day
Nîmes) and is one of the best preserved vestiges of the
Roman Empire.
France
–
With
Clovis ' conversion to Catholicism in 498, the
Frankish monarchy,
elective and
secular until then, became
hereditary and of
divine right.
5.
Regions of France
–
France is divided into 18 administrative regions, including 13 metropolitan regions and 5 overseas regions. The current legal concept of region was adopted in 1982, the term région was officially created by the Law of Decentralisation, which also gave regions their legal status. The first direct elections for representatives took place on 16 March 1986. In 2016, the number of regions was reduced from 27 to 18 through amalgamation, in 2014, the French parliament passed a law reducing the number of metropolitan regions from 22 to 13 with effect from 1 January 2016. However, the region of Upper and Lower Normandy is simply called Normandy. Permanent names were to be proposed by the new regional councils by 1 July 2016, the legislation defining the new regions also allowed the Centre region to officially change its name to Centre-Val de Loire with effect from January 2015. Two regions, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, opted to retain their interim names, between 1982 and 2015, there were 22 regions in Metropolitan France. Before 2011, there were four regions, in 2011 Mayotte became the fifth. Regions lack separate legislative authority and therefore cannot write their own statutory law and they levy their own taxes and, in return, receive a decreasing part of their budget from the central government, which gives them a portion of the taxes it levies. They also have considerable budgets managed by a council made up of representatives voted into office in regional elections. A regions primary responsibility is to build and furnish high schools, in March 2004, the French central government unveiled a controversial plan to transfer regulation of certain categories of non-teaching school staff to the regional authorities. Critics of this plan contended that tax revenue was insufficient to pay for the costs. In addition, regions have considerable power over infrastructural spending, e. g. education, public transit, universities and research. This has meant that the heads of regions such as Île-de-France or Rhône-Alpes can be high-profile positions. Number of regions controlled by each coalition since 1986, Overseas region is a recent designation, given to the overseas departments that have similar powers to those of the regions of metropolitan France. Radio France Internationale in English Overseas regions Ministère de lOutre-Mer some explanations about the past and current developments of DOMs and TOMs
Regions of France
6.
Departments of France
–
In the administrative divisions of France, the department is one of the three levels of government below the national level, between the administrative regions and the commune. There are 96 departments in metropolitan France and 5 overseas departments, each department is administered by an elected body called a departmental council. From 1800 to April 2015, they were called general councils, the departments were created in 1791 as a rational replacement of Ancien Régime provinces with a view to strengthen national unity, the title department is used to mean a part of a larger whole. Almost all of them were named after geographical features rather than after historical or cultural territories which could have their own loyalties. The earliest known suggestion of it is from 1764 in the writings of dArgenson and they have inspired similar divisions in many countries, some of them former French colonies. Most French departments are assigned a number, the Official Geographical Code. Some overseas departments have a three-digit number, the number is used, for example, in the postal code, and was until recently used for all vehicle registration plates. For example, inhabitants of Loiret might refer to their department as the 45 and this reform project has since been abandoned. The first French territorial departments were proposed in 1665 by Marc-René dArgenson to serve as administrative areas purely for the Ponts et Chaussées infrastructure administration, before the French Revolution, France gained territory gradually through the annexation of a mosaic of independent entities. By the close of the Ancien Régime, it was organised into provinces, during the period of the Revolution, these were dissolved, partly in order to weaken old loyalties. Their boundaries served two purposes, Boundaries were chosen to break up Frances historical regions in an attempt to erase cultural differences, Boundaries were set so that every settlement in the country was within a days ride of the capital of the department. This was a security measure, intended to keep the national territory under close control. This measure was directly inspired by the Great Terror, during which the government had lost control of rural areas far from any centre of government. The old nomenclature was carefully avoided in naming the new departments, most were named after an areas principal river or other physical features. Even Paris was in the department of Seine, the number of departments, initially 83, was increased to 130 by 1809 with the territorial gains of the Republic and of the First French Empire. Following Napoleons defeats in 1814-1815, the Congress of Vienna returned France to its pre-war size, in 1860, France acquired the County of Nice and Savoy, which led to the creation of three new departments. Two were added from the new Savoyard territory, while the department of Alpes-Maritimes was created from Nice, the 89 departments were given numbers based on their alphabetical order. The department of Bas-Rhin and parts of Meurthe, Moselle, Vosges and Haut-Rhin were ceded to the German Empire in 1871, following Frances defeat in the Franco-Prussian War
Departments of France
–
Geometrical proposition rejected
Departments of France
–
The 101 departments of France
Departments of France
–
The three Algerian departments in 1848
7.
Dordogne
–
Dordogne is a department in southwestern France, with its prefecture in Périgueux. The department is located in the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine between the Loire Valley and the Pyrenees, and is named after the great Dordogne river that runs through it and it roughly corresponds with the ancient county of Périgord. The county of Périgord dates back to when the area was inhabited by the Gauls and it was originally home to four tribes, the name for four tribes in the Gaulish language was Petrocore. The area eventually known as the county of Le Périgord. The Petrocores took part in the resistance against Rome, the earliest cluzeaux, artificial caves either above or below ground, can be found throughout the Dordogne. These subterranean refuges and lookout huts were large enough to shelter entire local populations, according to Julius Caesar the Gauls took refuge in these caves during the resistance. After Guienne province was transferred to the English Crown under the Plantagenets following the remarriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, the county had been torn apart and, as a consequence, that modeled its physiognomy. During the calmer periods of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the finest Gothic and Renaissance residences were built in Périgueux, Bergerac and Sarlat. In the countryside, the nobility had the majority of the more than 1200 chateaux, manors, at the time, Bergerac was one of the most powerful Huguenot strongholds, along with La Rochelle. and even Josephine Baker. A number of ruins have retained the memory of the tragedies took place within their walls. Several of the castles and châteaux are open to visitors and some of such as Bourdeilles and Mareuil. Saint-Léon-sur-Vézère, Connezac, Saint-Jean-de-Côle, La Roque-Gageac and many others are real jewels of architecture, as for the old quarters of Périgueux or Bergerac, restored and developed into pedestrian areas, they have regained their former charm. A number of towns, such as Brantôme, Issigeac, Eymet. A special mention should be made in respect to Sarlat. Dordogne is one of the original 83 departments created on 4 March 1790 during the French Revolution and it was included from the former province of Périgord, the county of Périgord. Its borders would continue to change over the subsequent decades, in 1793 the communes of Boisseuilh, Coubjours, Génis, Payzac, Saint-Cyr-les-Champagnes, Saint-Mesmin, Salagnac, Savignac, Saint-Trié and Teillots were transferred from Corrèze to Dordogne. In 1794 Dordogne ceded Cavarc to Lot-et-Garonne, later in 1794 Dordogne gained Parcoul from Charente-Inférieure. Following the restoration, in 1819, the commune of Bonrepos was suppressed and merged with the adjacent commune of Souillac in Lot, but at some stage the victim died, and following a trial four individuals identified as culpable were in turn condemned to die by guillotine
Dordogne
–
Prefecture building of the Dordogne department, in
Périgueux
Dordogne
–
Dordogne River near
Castelnaud-la-Chapelle
Dordogne
–
Périgueux
Dordogne
–
Château de Beynac
8.
Union for a Popular Movement
–
The Union for a Popular Movement was a centre-right political party in France that was one of the two major contemporary political parties in France along with the centre-left Socialist Party. The UMP was formed in 2002 as a merger of several parties under the leadership of President Jacques Chirac. In May 2015, the party was renamed and succeeded by the Republicans, Nicolas Sarkozy, then the president of the UMP, was elected President of France in the 2007 presidential election, but was defeated by PS candidate François Hollande in a run-off five years later. After the November 2012 party congress, the UMP experienced internal fractioning and was plagued by scandals which forced its president, Jean-François Copé. After his re-election as UMP president in November 2014, Sarkozy put forward an amendment to change the name of the party into The Republicans, since the 1980s, the political groups of the parliamentary right have joined forces around the values of economic liberalism and the building of Europe. Their rivalries had contributed to their defeat in the 1981 and 1988 legislative elections, before the 1993 legislative election, the Gaullist Rally for the Republic and the centrist Union for French Democracy formed an electoral alliance, the Union for France. However, in the 1995 presidential campaign they were divided between followers of Jacques Chirac, who was eventually elected, and supporters of Prime Minister Edouard Balladur. After their defeat in the 1997 legislative election, the RPR, before the 2002 presidential campaign, the supporters of President Jacques Chirac, divided in three centre-right parliamentary parties, founded an association named Union on the Move. After Chiracs re-election, in order to contest the election jointly. It was renamed Union for a Popular Movement and as established as a permanent organisation. In the UMP four major French political families were represented, Gaullism, republicanism, Christian democracy. Chiracs close ally Alain Juppé became the partys first president at the founding congress at the Bourget in November 2002. Juppé won 79. 42% of the vote, defeating Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, the leader of the partys Eurosceptic Arise the Republic faction, and three other candidates. During the partys earlier years, it was marked by tensions, in the 2004 European Parliament election on 13 June 2004, the UMP also suffered another heavy blow, winning 16. 6% of the vote, far behind the Socialist Party, and only 16 seats. Juppé resigned the presidency on 15 July 2004 after being found guilty in a corruption scandal in January of the same year. Nicolas Sarkozy rapidly announced that he would take over the presidency of the UMP and resign his position as finance minister, ending months of speculation. On 28 November 2004, Sarkozy was elected to the presidency with 85. 09% of the votes against 9. 1% for Dupont-Aignan and 5. 82% for Christine Boutin. Having gained control of what had been Chiracs party, Sarkozy focused the party machinery, however, during this time, the UMP under Sarkozy gained a record number of new members and rejuvenated itself in preparation of the 2007 election
Union for a Popular Movement
–
Nicolas Sarkozy speaking at a UMP party congress in 2004
Union for a Popular Movement
–
Union for a Popular Movement Union pour un mouvement populaire
Union for a Popular Movement
Union for a Popular Movement
9.
Daylight saving time
–
Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
Daylight saving time
–
Ancient
water clock that lets hour lengths vary with season.
Daylight saving time
–
G. V. Hudson invented modern DST, proposing it first in 1895.
Daylight saving time
–
Retailers generally favor DST.
United Cigar Stores hailed a 1918 DST bill.
Daylight saving time
–
William Willett independently proposed DST in 1907 and advocated it tirelessly.
10.
Central European Summer Time
–
It corresponds to UTC + two hours. Other names which have been applied to Central European Summer Time are Middle European Summer Time, Central European Daylight Saving Time, and Bravo Time. Since 1996 European Summer Time has been observed between 1,00 UTC on the last Sunday of March and 1,00 on the last Sunday of October, the following countries and territories use Central European Summer Time. In addition, Libya used CEST during the years 1951–1959, 1982–1989, 1996–1997, European Summer Time Other countries and territories in UTC+2 time zone Other names of UTC+2 time zone
Central European Summer Time
–
light blue
11.
Occitan language
–
Occitan, also known as lenga dòc by its native speakers, is a Romance language. It is spoken in southern France, Italys Occitan Valleys, Monaco, and Spains Val dAran, collectively, Occitan is also spoken in the linguistic enclave of Guardia Piemontese. However, there is controversy about the unity of the language, others include Catalan in this family, as the distance between this language and some Occitan dialects is similar to the distance among different Occitan dialects. In fact, Catalan was considered an Occitan dialect until the end of the 19th century, today, Occitan is an official language in Catalonia, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken in the Val dAran. Since September 2010, the Parliament of Catalonia has considered Aranese Occitan to be the preferred language for use in the Val dAran. Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish, there is no written standard language called Occitan. Instead, there are competing norms for writing Occitan, some of which attempt to be pan-dialectal, There are also significant lexical differences, where some dialects have words cognate with French, and others have Catalan and Spanish cognates. Nonetheless, there is a significant amount of mutual intelligibility, the long-term survival of Occitan is in grave doubt. According to the UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages, four of the six dialects of Occitan are considered severely endangered. The name Occitan comes from lenga dòc, òc being the Occitan word for yes and this was not, of course, the only defining characteristic of each group. The word òc came from Vulgar Latin hoc, while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud, Old Catalan, and now the Catalan of Northern Catalonia also have hoc. Other Romance languages derive their word for yes from the Latin sic, thus, etc. such as Spanish sí, Eastern Lombard sé, Sicilian and Italian sì, or Portuguese sim. French uses si to answer yes in response to questions that are asked in the negative sense, the name Occitan is sometimes considered a neologism, however, it was attested around 1300 as occitanus, a crossing of oc and aquitanus. For many centuries, the Occitan dialects were referred to as Limousin or Provençal, after Frédéric Mistrals Félibrige movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for Occitan. The term first came into fashion in Italy, currently, linguists use the terms Provençal and Limousin strictly to refer to specific varieties within Occitania, keeping the name Occitan for the language as a whole. Many non-specialists, however, continue to refer to the language as Provençal, NO·L LI TOLRÀ NO·L LI DEVEDARÀ NI NO LEN DECEBRÀ. Nec societatem non AURÀ, si per castellum recuperare NON O FA, et si recuperare potuerit in potestate Froterio et Raimundo LO TORNARÀ, carolingian litanies, both written and sung in Latin, were answered to in Old Occitan by the audience. Occitan was the vehicle for the poetry of the medieval troubadours and trobairises, At that time
Occitan language
–
Main cities of Occitania, written in the Occitan language
Occitan language
–
Occitan
Occitan language
–
"Speak French, Be Clean" written across the wall of a Southern French school
Occitan language
–
This bilingual street sign in
Toulouse, like many such signs found in historical parts of the city, is maintained primarily for its antique charm; it is typical of what little remains of the lenga d'òc in southern French cities.
12.
Prefectures in France
–
There are 101 prefectures in France, one for each department. The official in charge is the prefect, the prefect represents the national government at the local level and as such exercises the powers that are constitutionally attributed to the national government. The prefect issues ordinances written for the application of law, to close a building that does not conform to safety codes. In the past, the prefect was head of the department, but since 1982, there is an exception in Paris and its three surrounding departments. These departments are administered by a prefecture for law enforcement and security purposes, called the Prefecture of Police. The power of law enforcement is usually invested in the mayor in other French communes, the departments are divided into arrondissements, themselves divided into cantons. The chef-lieu darrondissement is the subprefecture, the official in charge is the subprefect (French, sous-préfet. Cantons have relatively few competences, the most important one being the local organisation of elections, administrative divisions of France French National Police
Prefectures in France
–
Petite Couronne
13.
Diocese
–
The word diocese is derived from the Greek term διοίκησις meaning administration. When now used in a sense, it refers to a territorial unit of administration. This structure of governance is known as episcopal polity. The word diocesan means relating or pertaining to a diocese and it can also be used as a noun meaning the bishop who has the principal supervision of a diocese. An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese, an archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or have had importance due to size or historical significance. The archbishop may have authority over any other suffragan bishops. In the Latter Day Saint movement, the bishopric is used to describe the bishop himself. Especially in the Middle Ages, some bishops held political as well as religious authority within their dioceses, in the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated in a larger unit, the diocese. With the adoption of Christianity as the Empires official religion in the 4th century, a formal church hierarchy was set up, parallel to the civil administration, whose areas of responsibility often coincided. With the collapse of the Western Empire in the 5th century, a similar, though less pronounced, development occurred in the East, where the Roman administrative apparatus was largely retained by the Byzantine Empire. In modern times, many dioceses, though later subdivided, have preserved the boundaries of a long-vanished Roman administrative division, modern usage of diocese tends to refer to the sphere of a bishops jurisdiction. As of January 2015, in the Catholic Church there are 2,851 regular dioceses,1 papal see,641 archdioceses and 2,209 dioceses in the world, in the Eastern rites in communion with the Pope, the equivalent unit is called an eparchy. Eastern Orthodoxy calls dioceses metropoleis in the Greek tradition or eparchies in the Slavic tradition, after the Reformation, the Church of England retained the existing diocesan structure which remains throughout the Anglican Communion. The one change is that the areas administered under the Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop of York are properly referred to as provinces and this usage is relatively common in the Anglican Communion. Certain Lutheran denominations such as the Church of Sweden do have individual dioceses similar to Roman Catholics and these dioceses and archdioceses are under the government of a bishop. Other Lutheran bodies and synods that have dioceses and bishops include the Church of Denmark, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Evangelical Church in Germany, rather, it is divided into a middle judicatory. The Lutheran Church-International, based in Springfield, Illinois, presently uses a traditional diocesan structure and its current president is Archbishop Robert W. Hotes. The Church of God in Christ has dioceses throughout the United States, in the COGIC, each state is divided up into at least three dioceses that are all led by a bishop, but some states as many as seven dioceses
Diocese
–
Sankt Laurentii kyrka Diocese of Linköping, Söderköpings kommun, Sweden
Diocese
–
Pope Pius XI (left) blesses Bishop
Stephen Alencastre as fifth
Apostolic Vicar of the Hawaiian Islands in a
Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace window. In
Roman Catholicism, the
pope is the bishop of the
Diocese of Rome, creates the other
Catholic dioceses throughout the world and chooses their bishops.
Diocese
–
St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh Cathedral of the Diocese of Armagh and Metropolitan Cathedral of the United Provinces of Armagh and Tuam,
Church of Ireland Anglican Communion
Diocese
–
Jesus
14.
Gaul
–
It covered an area of 190,800 sq mi. According to the testimony of Julius Caesar, Gaul was divided into three parts, Gallia Celtica, Belgica and Aquitania, during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, Gaul fell under Roman rule, Gallia Cisalpina was conquered in 203 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC. Gaul was invaded after 120 BC by the Cimbri and the Teutons, Gallia remains a name of France in modern Greek and modern Latin. The Greek and Latin names Galatia, and Gallia are ultimately derived from a Celtic ethnic term or clan Gal-to-. Galli of Gallia Celtica were reported to refer to themselves as Celtae by Caesar. Hellenistic folk etymology connected the name of the Galatians to the supposedly milk-white skin of the Gauls, modern researchers say it is related to Welsh gallu, Cornish galloes, capacity, power, thus meaning powerful people. The English Gaul is from French Gaule and is unrelated to Latin Gallia, as adjectives, English has the two variants, Gaulish and Gallic. The two adjectives are used synonymously, as pertaining to Gaul or the Gauls, although the Celtic language or languages spoken in Gaul is predominantly known as Gaulish. The Germanic w- is regularly rendered as gu- / g- in French, also unrelated in spite of superficial similarity is the name Gael. The Irish word gall did originally mean a Gaul, i. e. an inhabitant of Gaul, but its meaning was later widened to foreigner, to describe the Vikings, and later still the Normans. The dichotomic words gael and gall are sometimes used together for contrast, by 500 BC, there is strong Hallstatt influence throughout most of France. By the late 5th century BC, La Tène influence spreads rapidly across the territory of Gaul. The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age in France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, southwest Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, farther north extended the contemporary pre-Roman Iron Age culture of northern Germany and Scandinavia. By the 2nd century BC, the Romans described Gallia Transalpina as distinct from Gallia Cisalpina, while some scholars believe the Belgae south of the Somme were a mixture of Celtic and Germanic elements, their ethnic affiliations have not been definitively resolved. One of the reasons is political interference upon the French historical interpretation during the 19th century, in addition to the Gauls, there were other peoples living in Gaul, such as the Greeks and Phoenicians who had established outposts such as Massilia along the Mediterranean coast. Also, along the southeastern Mediterranean coast, the Ligures had merged with the Celts to form a Celto-Ligurian culture, the prosperity of Mediterranean Gaul encouraged Rome to respond to pleas for assistance from the inhabitants of Massilia, who were under attack by a coalition of Ligures and Gauls. The Romans intervened in Gaul in 154 BC and again in 125 BC, whereas on the first occasion they came and went, on the second they stayed. Massilia was allowed to keep its lands, but Rome added to its territories the lands of the conquered tribes. The direct result of conquests was that by now, Rome controlled an area extending from the Pyrenees to the lower Rhône river
Gaul
–
Map of Roman Gaul (Droysens Allgemeiner historischer Handatlas, 1886)
Gaul
–
Gaul on the eve of the Gallic Wars.
Roman ethnography divides Gaul into five parts:
Gallia Belgica,
Gallia Celtica (largely corresponding to the later province
Gallia Lugdunensis),
Gallia Cisalpina,
Gallia Narbonensis and
Gallia Aquitania.
Gaul
–
Gauls in Rome
Gaul
–
Soldiers of Gaul, as imagined by a late 19th-century illustrator for the
Larousse dictionary, 1898
15.
History of Jews in Alsace
–
The history of the Jews in Alsace is one of the oldest in Europe. It was first attested to in 1165 by Benjamin of Tudela, who wrote about a number of learned men in Astransbourg. At its peak, in 1870, the Jewish community of Alsace numbered 35,000 people, other medieval representations have survived through copies of the Hortus deliciarum and as architectural fragments in the Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame. In 1286, Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, one of the leading Jewish figures of his day, was imprisoned by the German king in a fortress near Ensisheim, in 1349, Jews of Alsace were accused of poisoning the wells with plague. On February 14, Saint Valentines day, thousands of Jews were massacred during the Strasbourg pogrom, Jews were subsequently forbidden to settle in the town and were reminded every evening at 10 oclock by a Cathedral bell and a municipal herald blowing the Grüselhorn to leave. Alsatian Jews then settled in the villages and small towns. An important political figure for the Jews of Alsace and beyond was the long-serving shtadlan Josel of Rosheim, with the annexation of Alsace to France in 1681, Catholicism was restored as the principal Christian current. However, the prohibition against Jews settling in Strasbourg, and the special taxes Jews were subjected to, were not lifted. In the 18th century, Herz Cerfbeer of Medelsheim, the merchant and philanthropist. The French Revolution then admitted Jews back into the town, by 1790, the Jewish population of Alsace was approximately 22,500, about 3% of the provincial population. Another 7500 Jews lived in neighboring Lorraine, together they comprised three-fourths of the 40,000 Jews who lived in France at the time. The Jews were highly segregated, subject to long-standing anti-Jewish regulations and they maintained their own customs, language, and historic traditions within the tightly-knit ghettos, they adhered to Talmudic law enforced by their rabbis. Jews were barred from most cities and instead lived in hundreds of small hamlets and they were also barred from most occupations, and concentrated in trade, services, and especially in moneylending. They financed about a third of the mortgages in Alsace, leading philosophers of the French Enlightenment, such as Denis Diderot and Voltaire, ridiculed and condemned French Jews as misanthropic, rapacious, and culturally backward. In 1777, a local judge forged hundreds of receipts, which he gave to Catholic peasants, tolerance grew during the French Revolution, with full emancipation given to Protestants in 1789, Sephardic Jews in 1790, and the Ashkenazi Jews of Alsace and Lorraine in 1791. When Napoleon created the Grand Sanhedrin in 1806, he appointed the Chief Rabbi of Strasbourg, Joseph David Sinzheim, however, local antisemitism also increased, and Napoleon turned hostile in 1806, imposing a moratorium on repaying all debts owed to Jews. In 1808 Napoleon imposed tight limits on Jewish money-lending, capping interest rates at 5%, napoleons decrees collapsed after he fell from power, but an undercurrent of antisemitism remained. In the 1830–1870 era, urban middle-class Jews made enormous progress toward integration and acculturation, by 1831, the state began paying salaries to official rabbis, and in 1846 a special oath required for Jews in court was discontinued
History of Jews in Alsace
–
Synagogue du Quai Kléber,
Strasbourg, inaugurated in 1898, burnt and razed by the
Nazis in 1940
History of Jews in Alsace
–
A kettle full of Jews (with white hats) burning in hell, an illustration from the
Hortus deliciarum
History of Jews in Alsace
–
Degradation of Alfred Dreyfus, January 5, 1895
History of Jews in Alsace
–
Ingwiller's now abandoned synagogue was built in 1822 over the ruins of a medieval castle, and enlarged in 1891.
16.
Simone Mareuil
–
Simone Mareuil was a French actress best known for appearing in the surrealist film Un Chien Andalou. Born Marie Louise Simone Vacher in Périgueux, Dordogne, she appeared in a number of films and she was the second wife of actor Philippe Hersent. After World War II, she returned to Périgueux, where she fell into a deep depression and she committed suicide by self-immolation — dousing herself in gasoline and burning herself to death in a public square. Simone Mareuil at the Internet Movie Database Simone Mareuil at Find a Grave
Simone Mareuil
–
Simone Mareuil in Un chien andalou
17.
Un Chien Andalou
–
Un Chien Andalou is a 1929 silent surrealist short film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It was Buñuels first film and was released in 1929 with a limited showing at Studio des Ursulines in Paris. Un Chien Andalou has no plot in the sense of the word. The chronology of the film is disjointed, jumping from the once upon a time to eight years later without the events or characters changing very much. It uses dream logic in narrative flow that can be described in terms of then-popular Freudian free association, the film opens with a title card reading Once upon a time. A middle-aged man sharpens his razor at his door and tests the razor on his thumb. He then opens the door, and idly fingers the razor while gazing at the moon, about to be engulfed by a thin cloud, there is a cut to a close-up of a young woman being held by the man as she calmly stares straight ahead. Another cut occurs to the moon being overcome by the cloud, then a cut to a close up of a hand slitting the eye of an animal with the razor, the subsequent title card reads eight years later. A slim young man bicycles down a calm urban street wearing what appears to be a nuns habit, a cut occurs to the young woman from the first scene, who has been reading in a sparingly furnished upstairs apartment. She hears the man approaching on his bicycle and casts aside the book she was reading. She goes to the window and sees the man lying on the curb. She emerges from the building and attempts to revive the young man, later, the young woman assembles pieces of the young mans clothing on a bed in the upstairs room, and concentrates upon the clothing. The young man appears near the door, the young man and the young woman stare at his hand, which has a hole in the palm from which ants emerge. A slow transition occurs focusing on the hair of the young woman as she lies on the beach. There is a cut to a young woman, with bobbed hair and dressed in rather masculine attire. She pokes at a human hand with her cane while surrounded by a large crowd. The crowd clears when the places the hand in the box previously carried by the young man. The androgynous young woman contemplates something happily while standing in the middle of the now busy street clutching the box and she is then run over by a car and a few bystanders gather around her
Un Chien Andalou
–
French poster
Un Chien Andalou
–
Simone Mareuil's eye being held open by Luis Buñuel in the opening scene
Un Chien Andalou
–
Pierre Batcheff bicycling in nun's clothing
Un Chien Andalou
–
The shot of the eyeball (actually that of a dead calf) being slit by Buñuel
18.
Isle River
–
The Isle is a 255-kilometre long river in south-western France, right tributary of the Dordogne. Its source is in the north-western Massif Central, near the town Nexon and it flows south-west through the following départements and towns, Haute-Vienne, Le Chalard Dordogne, Périgueux, Mussidan Gironde, Libourne It flows into the Dordogne in Libourne. Among the tributaries of the Isle are the Auvézère, the Loue, the Beauronne and the Dronne
Isle River
–
Isle River in
Périgueux
19.
Amphitheatre
–
An amphitheatre or amphitheater /ˈæmfᵻˌθiːətər/ is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ἀμφιθέατρον, from ἀμφί, ancient Roman amphitheatres were oval or circular in plan, with seating tiers that surrounded the central performance area, like a modern open-air stadium. In contrast both ancient Greek and ancient Roman theatres were built in a semicircle, with tiered seating rising on one side of the performance area. In modern usage, amphitheatre is used to describe theatre-style stages with spectator seating on only one side, theatres in the round. Natural formations of similar shape are known as natural amphitheatres. Ancient Roman amphitheatres were major public venues, circular or oval in plan and they were used for events such as gladiator combats, chariot races, venationes and executions. About 230 Roman amphitheatres have been found across the area of the Roman Empire, the earliest Roman amphitheatres date from the middle of the 1st century BC, but most were built under Imperial rule, from the Augustan period onwards. Imperial amphitheatres were built throughout the Roman empire, the largest could accommodate 40, the most elaborate featured multi-storeyed, arcaded façades and were elaborately decorated with marble, stucco and statuary. After the end of games in the 5th century and of staged animal hunts in the 6th. Their materials were mined or recycled, some were razed, and others were converted into fortifications. A few continued as convenient open meeting places, in some of these, in modern usage, an amphitheatre is a circular, semicircular or curved, acoustically vibrant performance space, particularly one located outdoors. Small-scale amphitheatres can serve to host outdoor local community performances, notable modern amphitheatres include the Shoreline Amphitheatre and the Hollywood Bowl. The term amphitheatre is used for some indoor venues such as the Gibson Amphitheatre. The term amphitheatre can also be used to naturally occurring formations which would be ideal for this purpose. Arena Stadium Thingplatz List of Roman amphitheatres List of contemporary amphitheatres List of indoor arenas List of ancient Greek theatres Roman theatre Bomgardner, the Story of the Roman Amphitheatre
Amphitheatre
–
The
Colosseum in Rome, built c. 70 – 80 AD, is considered one of the greatest works of
architecture and
engineering.
Amphitheatre
–
Interior of the
Colosseum
Amphitheatre
–
Arles Amphitheatre, a
Roman arena in Arles, France, still in use today for bullfighting,
plays and summer
concerts.
Amphitheatre
–
The
Hollywood Bowl,
Hollywood,
California
20.
Roman villa
–
A Roman villa was a country house built for the upper class in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. The villa rustica centered on the villa itself, perhaps only seasonally occupied, under the Empire a concentration of Imperial villas grew up near the Bay of Naples, especially on the Isle of Capri, at Monte Circeo on the coast and at Antium. Wealthy Romans escaped the heat in the hills round Rome. Cicero allegedly possessed no fewer than seven villas, the oldest of them, Pliny the Younger had three or four, of which the example near Laurentium is the best known from his descriptions. The Empire contained many kinds of villas, not all of them lavishly appointed with mosaic floors, in the provinces, any country house with some decorative features in the Roman style may be called a villa by modern scholars. Some villas were more like the houses of England or Poland. These early suburban villas, such as the one at Romes Auditorium site or at Grottarossa in Rome, demonstrate the antiquity and it is possible that these early, suburban villas were also in fact the seats of power of regional strongmen or heads of important families. A third type of villa provided the organizational center of the large holdings called latifundia, by the first century BC, the classic villa took many architectural forms, with many examples employing atrium or peristyle, for enclosed spaces open to light and air. Upper class, wealthy Roman citizens in the countryside around Rome and throughout the Empire lived in villa complexes, the villa-complex consisted of three parts. The pars urbana where the owner and his family lived and this would be similar to the wealthy-persons in the city and would have painted walls. The pars rustica where the chef and slaves of the villa worked and lived and this was also the living quarters for the farms animals. There would usually be other rooms here that might be used as store rooms, the villa fructuaria would be the storage rooms. These would be where the products of the farm were stored ready for transport to buyers, storage rooms here would have been used for oil, wine, grain, grapes and any other produce of the villa. Other rooms in the villa might include an office, a temple for worship, several bedrooms, a dining room, Villas were often furnished with plumbed bathing facilities and many would have had an under-floor central heating known as the hypocaust. Smaller in the countryside, even non-commercial villas operated as largely self-supporting units, with associated farms, olive groves, Roman writers refer with satisfaction to the self-sufficiency of their villas, where they drank their own wine and pressed their own oil, a commonly used literary topos. The late Roman Republic witnessed an explosion of villa construction in Italy, especially in the following the dictatorship of Sulla. In Etruria, the villa at Settefinestre has been interpreted as being the centre of one of the latifundia that were involved in agricultural production. At Settefinestre and elsewhere, the housing of such villas was not richly appointed
Roman villa
–
Roman Villa Rustica Model. Remnants of these types of villas can be found in the vicinity of
Valjevo,
Serbia
Roman villa
–
Floor mosaics: Camino de Albalate,
Calanda, Spain
Roman villa
–
Some sumptuous Roman villas featured complex floor mosaics, such as
Villa Armira in modern
Bulgaria
Roman villa
–
Late Roman owners of villas had luxuries like
hypocaust -heated rooms with mosaics
21.
Peristyle
–
In Hellenistic Greek and Roman architecture a peristyle is a continuous porch formed by a row of columns surrounding the perimeter of building or a courtyard. Tetrastoon is a rarely used term for this feature. In the Christian ecclesiastical architecture that developed from Roman basilica, a courtyard peristyle, in rural settings a wealthy Roman could surround a villa with terraced gardens, within the city Romans created their gardens inside the domus. Sometimes the lararium, a shrine for the Lares, the gods of the household, was located in this portico, the courtyard might contain flowers and shrubs, fountains, benches, sculptures and even fish ponds. No new peristyle houses were built after A. D.550
Peristyle
–
Reconstruction of a Roman peristylum (peristyle) and peristylium (courtyard) of Pompeii.
Peristyle
–
"In the Peristyle"
John William Waterhouse (1849-1917). Rochdale Art Gallery,
Rochdale,
England.
Peristyle
–
Ceiling decoration in the peristyle hall of the
Medinet Habu
Peristyle
–
Peristyle of the Diocletian palace in Split, Croatia.
R. Adam 1764
22.
Vesunna Gallo-Roman Museum
–
The Vesunna Gallo-Roman Museum is a museum of Gallo-Roman art and archaeology in the town of Périgueux, located in the French department of the Dordogne. The Gallo-Roman ruins covered by a museum was constructed to protect a historical monument of France. In 1959, a few metres from the Vesunna Tower, the remains of a domus were discovered, what followed was a series of excavations, From 1960 to 1968, under the direction of Claude Barrière, assisted by Max Sarradet, the plan of the domus is updated. Archaeologists distinguished two stages in the occupation of the site, the domus was built in the first century AD and it has a kitchen, a triclinium, private thermal bath with the house centred on a garden with a pool. The remains are classified as a French Historical Monument on 25 October 1963, from 1973 to 1977, under the direction of Anne and Jean-Luc Tobie and Marc Gauthier, searches focused on the north and south of the site. They brought to light a peristyle colonnade to the North and a reception room in the South. Several wells were excavated and they discovered a wooden pump in the well, from 1992 to 1995, under the direction of Claudine Girardy Caillat, surveys are conducted to prepare for the construction of the Museum. The excavations were organised around an oak tree and the area planned for the construction of a thick wall, from 1999 to 2000, under the direction of Luc Wozny, archaeologists excavated the street to the North of the and updated the entry of the domus. Upon discovery, the site was named the villa des Bouquets and it is today called the Vesunna domus. There soon appeared the need to ensure a good conservation of the site, the idea of a museum building is old. The first projects had been studied even before the end of the excavations, the decision was finally taken in 1992 by the municipal council of Périgueux. An architectural drawing competition took place in 1993, the museum is a project of Jean Nouvel, an architect born in Fumel, France and a winner of the Pritzker Prize in 2008. The main constraint that weighed on the project by Jean Nouvel was the impact of the museum on a site that since 1963 had been classified as a historical monument. The impact on the ground of these pillars is minimal and they are based on micropiles driven deep into the ground, supporting studs of a metre wide, holding the pillars. To West, a 90 meter long concrete wall serves as a spur to a umbrella roof. Reveal and so inform the gaze of the visitor confronted with the ruins, from a landscaped entrance around an oak tree. The tour begins on the first floor where the model of the ancient city, Vesunna and it continues on two mezzanines where the work of the architect highlights the domus. The museum develops a theme of the city and public life, the route continues down onto the archaeological site, using a raised wooden deck floor resting on a metal frames
Vesunna Gallo-Roman Museum
–
Gallo-Roman ruins of the ancient Roman capital Vésunna, located at the site of the Museum.
.svg)
listen); Occitan: Peireguers [pejɾeˈɣɥes, pejɾeˈɡœː] or Periguers [peɾiˈɣɥes, peɾiˈɡœː]) is a commune in the Dordogne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France.![[icon]](/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small}
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "article name needed". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton.
