This is a list of Regions of France by population , based on data from the 2014 census. [1]
France is divided into 18 administrative regions, which are traditionally divided between 13 metropolitan regions, located on the European continent, and 5 overseas regions, located outside the European continent. The 13 metropolitan regions are each further subdivided into 2 to 13 departments, while the overseas regions consist of only one department each and hence are also referred to as "overseas departments". The current legal concept of region was adopted in 1982, and in 2016 what had been 27 regions was reduced to 18. The overseas regions should not be confused the overseas collectivities, which have a semi-autonomous status.
In biology, a population is all the organisms of the same group or species, which live in a particular geographical area, and have the capability of interbreeding. The area of a sexual population is the area where inter-breeding is potentially possible between any pair within the area, and where the probability of interbreeding is greater than the probability of cross-breeding with individuals from other areas.
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses include agriculture, business, and traffic censuses. The United Nations defines the essential features of population and housing censuses as "individual enumeration, universality within a defined territory, simultaneity and defined periodicity", and recommends that population censuses be taken at least every 10 years. United Nations recommendations also cover census topics to be collected, official definitions, classifications and other useful information to co-ordinate international practice.
| Rank | Région | Population |
| 1 | Île-de-France | 11,852,851 |
| 2 | Rhône-Alpes | 6,283,541 |
| 3 | Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur | 4,916,069 |
| 4 | Nord-Pas-de-Calais | 4,042,015 |
| 5 | Pays-de-la-Loire | 3,601,113 |
| 6 | Aquitaine | 3,254,233 |
| 7 | Brittany | 3,217,767 |
| 8 | Midi-Pyrénées | 2,903,420 |
| 9 | Centre-Val de Loire | 2,556,835 |
| 10 | Lorraine | 2,350,657 |
| 11 | Languedoc-Roussillon | 2,670,046 |
| 12 | Picardy | 1,918,155 |
| 13 | Upper Normandy | 1,839,393 |
| 14 | Alsace | 1,852,325 |
| 15 | Poitou-Charentes | 1,777,773 |
| 16 | Burgundy | 1,642,734 |
| 17 | Lower Normandy | 1,475,684 |
| 18 | Champagne-Ardenne | 1,336,053 |
| 19 | Auvergne | 1,350,682 |
| 20 | Franche-Comté | 1,173,440 |
| 21 | Limousin | 741,072 |
| 22 | Réunion | 828,581 |
| 23 | Guadeloupe | 404,635 |
| 24 | Martinique | 392,291 |
| 25 | Corsica | 314,486 |
| 26 | Guiana | 237,549 |
| 27 | Mayotte (2012) | 212,645 |
