Last updated Topographic map of the five regions forming the French Great South-West before the 2016 mergers.
The French Great South-West is a geographical, sociological, economic and cultural entity bringing together the administrative regions of Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie, resulting from the merger on January 1, 2016, of five previous regions; in these two regions combined, it covers 156,000 km2, or 29% of the territory of metropolitan France. It is a grouping devoid of its own political or administrative structures, set up, with the objective of an interregional reflection on spatial planning at the level of new European issues, at the initiative of the Interministerial Delegation at territory planning and regional attractiveness.
As Bernard Morel points out in the Revue de géographie de Lyon[1] «territorial constructions of land use planning are inventions of "geographic objects" which are part of political strategies.[2]»
The French Great South-West in the light of Europe.
The study programs for the French Great South-West and the French Great South-East were launched on the decision of the Interministerial Committee for Land Use Planning and Development, which met on April 10, 1997, in Auch2. An interministerial and interregional spatial planning mission coordinated by the prefect of the Midi-Pyrénées region was created at the initiative of the Delegation for spatial planning and regional action (DATAR), whose order was the study of a network of State services on the scale of the Great South-West.
In 2003, the Interministerial Delegation for Regional Planning and Regional Attractiveness (new name of DATAR), entrusted the revision of this study to an enlarged body in a European perspective, the study and development mission. interregional and European cooperation for the French Great South-West. The result of this reflection, carried out along three main lines:
under the supervision of the Regional Directorate of Insee Midi-Pyrénées in collaboration with the directorates of the other four regions and in association with the State services, the prefectures of the five regions and the five regional councils of Aquitaine, Languedoc-Roussillon, Limousin, Midi-Pyrénées and Poitou-Charentes, resulted in a new publication by INSEE in March 2006.
Geography entity
Relief map of the Pyrenees (The area belonging to the Great South-West is highlighted)
The French Great South-West, spread over 156,000 km2, i.e. 29% of the surface area of metropolitan France represented by the two regions of Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie, brings together on its territory a diversity of reliefs, hydrography and natural spaces of a great diversity. From the high peaks of the Pyrenees or more modest of the Massif Central to the expanse of the beaches of the Côte d'Argent or the Côte d'Améthyste, passing by the great fluvial plain of the Garonne or that of the Poitevin marsh or by the hilly terrain of the Gascony hillsides, its landscape is representative of practically the entire sample of the hexagonal relief.
Contrasting reliefs
Two mountain ranges
Relief map of the Massif Central.
The entire 430km of the French side of the Pyrenees chain borders the south of the Great South-West, with several peaks over 3,000 meters: Balaïtous (3,144 m), Vignemale (3,298 m), Mont Perdu (3 248 m), La Munia (3,133 m), Pic long (3,192 m), Grand Batchimale (3,177 m), Pic Perdiguère (3,222 m), Pique d'Estats (3,144 m). The Piémont pyrénéen gradually softens its relief to merge into the Landes de Gascogne plain beyond the occidentales (western) Pyrenees. The slopes of Gascony downstream of the central Pyrenees retain some inclinations for heights, advancing the softness of their hilly landscape as far as the valley of the middle Garonne. Carved out by the Têt, the orientales (eastern) Pyrenees plunge more steeply towards the Côte Vermeille and extend towards the Aude valley stretching between Corbières and Montagne Noire.
The western foothills and the south of the Massif Central occupy a large part of the Great South-West, of which they constitute the eastern edge. Here the altitudes are more modest (between 300 and 1,600 m): Sommet de Finiels (1,699 m), Mont Aigoual (1,567 m), Truc de Fortunio (1,550 m), Signal de Mailhebiau (1,469 m), Pic de Nore (1,211 m), Pic du Pal (1,155 m), Caroux-Espinouse (1,124 m), Merdelou (1,100 m), Mont Caroux (1,091 m), Mont Bessou (977 m), but the landscapes nonetheless remain particularly contrasted. The Limousin plateaus are hilly uplands which notably carry the plateau de Millevaches at an altitude of 900 m. In the south, the massif rises significantly in the Montagne Noire or in the monts de Lacaune, with important summits at Mont Lozère or Mont Aigoual. It ends abruptly above the plains of Languedoc. The plateaus of the Grands Causses constitute vast spaces cut by the deep canyons of Tarn, Jonte or Dourbie to the south of the massif, between Rouergue and Cévennes. The Quercy plateaus to the west are also made up of karstic surfaces, sometimes hollowed out by chasms, but are lower on the approach to Aquitaine. The plains are often narrow, like around the Causses, or form small periphery basins.
In the field of oncology (research, diagnosis and treatment of cancers), the Cancéropôle Great South-West aims to bring together teams (researchers and clinicians) located in the former Aquitaine, Limousin, Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées regions. . The former Poitou-Charentes region is part of the Cancéropôle Great West (with the Brittany, Centre-Val de Loire and Pays de la Loire regions). Poitou-Charentes is also part of other entities (not all) of the French West: this duality may reflect the respective attraction exerted on the south and the north of this former region by different metropolises: Bordeaux in the south for the Charentes, Nantes and Tours for Deux-Sèvres and Vienne.
Le Grand Sud-Ouest, Préfecture de la région Aquitaine, INSEE Aquitaine, Préfecture de la région Midi-Pyrénées, INSEE Midi-Pyrénées, DATAR, Christiane Petibon, Catherine Meunier, Paul Ahmed Michaux, INSEE Aquitaine, Bordeaux, INSEE Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse, 1999, collection Le Dossier, no 31, 76 p. ISBN2-11-050106-5
Robert Marconis, «La Revue Géographique des Pyrénées et du Sud-Ouest, de 1930 au début des années 1970», Géocarrefour, vol. 86/3-4, 2011 (read the article online in French[archive]).
Charente-Maritime is a département in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region on the southwestern coast of France. Named after the river Charente, its prefecture is La Rochelle. As of 2019, it had a population of 651,358 with an area of 6,864 square kilometres.
Languedoc-Roussillon is a former administrative region of France. On 1 January 2016, it joined with the region of Midi-Pyrénées to become Occitania. It comprised five departments, and bordered the other French regions of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Rhône-Alpes, Auvergne, Midi-Pyrénées towards the north, and Spain, Andorra and the Mediterranean Sea towards the south. It was the southernmost region of mainland France.
Poitou-Charentes was an administrative region on the southwest coast of France. It comprised four departments: Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres and Vienne. It included the historical provinces of Angoumois, Aunis, Saintonge and Poitou.
Midi-Pyrénées is a former administrative region of France. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region of Occitania. It was the largest region of Metropolitan France by area, larger than the Netherlands or Denmark.
Southern France, also known as the south of France or colloquially in French as le Midi, is a defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin, Spain, the Mediterranean Sea and Italy. It includes southern Nouvelle-Aquitaine in the west, Occitanie in the centre, the southern parts of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in the northeast, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur in the southeast, as well as the island of Corsica in the southeast. Southern France is generally considered part of southern Europe because of its association with the Mediterranean Sea.
Occitania is the historical region in Southern Europe where the Occitan language was historically spoken and where it is sometimes used as a second language. This cultural area roughly encompasses much of the southern third of France as well as part of Spain, Monaco, and parts of Italy.
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Nouvelle-Aquitaine is the largest administrative region in France by area, spanning the west and southwest of Metropolitan France. The region was created in 2014 by the merging of Aquitaine, Limousin, and Poitou-Charentes in a territorial reform. Nouvelle-Aquitaine has an area of 84,035.7 km2 (32,446.4 sq mi) – more than 1⁄7 of Metropolitan France – and has a population of 6,033,952 as of 2020. The new region was established on 1 January 2016, following the regional elections in December 2015.
Occitania is the southernmost administrative region of metropolitan France excluding Corsica, created on 1 January 2016 from the former regions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées. The Council of State approved Occitania as the new name of the region on 28 September 2016, coming into effect on 30 September 2016.
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