Yvelines

Yvelines
Department of France
From top down, left to right: prefecture building in Versailles, view of La Celle-Saint-Cloud, forest and lake in Guyancourt, marble courtyard and gardens of the Palace of Versailles
Flag Coat of arms
Location of Yvelines in France
Coordinates: 48°50′N1°55′E / 48.833°N 1.917°E / 48.833; 1.917
Country	France
Region	Île-de-France
Prefecture	Versailles
Subprefectures	Mantes-la-Jolie Rambouillet Saint-Germain- en-Laye
Government
•  President of the Departmental Council	Pierre Bédier [1] (LR)
Area 1
• Total	2,284 km2 (882 sq mi)
Population  (2021) [2]
• Total	1,456,365
• Rank	8th
• Density	640/km2 (1,700/sq mi)
GDP [3]
• Total	€60.058 billion (2021)
• Per capita	€42,238 (2021)
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
Department number	78
Arrondissements	4
Cantons	21
Communes	259
^1 French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries and lakes, ponds and glaciers larger than 1 km2.

Yvelines (French: [ivlin] ^ⓘ ) is a department in the western part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. In 2019, it had a population of 1,448,207. ^[4] Its prefecture is Versailles, home to the Palace of Versailles, the principal residence of the King of France from 1682 until 1789, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979. Yvelines' subprefectures are Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Mantes-la-Jolie and Rambouillet.

History

Yvelines was created from the western part of the former department of Seine-et-Oise on 1 January 1968 in accordance with a law passed on 10 January 1964 and a décret d'application (a decree specifying how a law should be enforced) from 26 February 1965. It inherited Seine-et-Oise's official number of 78 since it took up the largest portion of its territory. In addition to this, it inherited Seine-et-Oise's prefecture, Versailles.

Yvelines derives its name from the Forest of Yveline, next to Rambouillet. ^[5]

It gained the communes of Châteaufort and Toussus-le-Noble from the adjacent department of Essonne in 1969.

The departmental capital, Versailles, which grew up around Louis XIV's château, was also the French capital for more than a century under the Ancien Régime and again between 1871 and 1879 during the early years of the Third Republic. Since then the château has continued to welcome the French Parliament when it is called upon to sit in a congressional sitting (with both houses sitting together) in order to enact constitutional changes or to listen to a formal declaration by the President. ^[6]

Geography

Situation

Yvelines is bordered by the departments of Val-d'Oise on the north, Hauts-de-Seine on the east, Essonne on the southeast, Eure-et-Loir on the southwest and Eure on the west.

The eastern part of the department, as well as its northern part along the Seine, is part of the Paris metropolitan area, but the rest of the department is rural, much of it covered by the Forest of Rambouillet (also known as the Forest of Yveline, from which the name of the department is derived).

Two regional parks can be found in Yvelines: Haute Vallée de Chevreuse Regional Natural Park and part of Vexin Français Park. Yvelines is home to one of France's best known golf courses, La Tuilerie-Bignon, in the village of Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche.

Principal towns

Besides Versailles (the prefecture and most populous commune) and the subprefectures of Mantes-la-Jolie, Rambouillet, and Saint-Germain-en-Laye, important cities include Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, Poissy, Les Mureaux, Houilles, Plaisir, Sartrouville, Chatou, Le Chesnay, and the new agglomeration community of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. As of 2019, there are 21 communes with more than 20,000 inhabitants. The 10 most populous communes are: ^[4]

Commune	Population (2019)
Versailles	84,808
Sartrouville	52,774
Saint-Germain-en-Laye	44,806
Mantes-la-Jolie	43,921
Poissy	39,187
Conflans-Sainte-Honorine	35,536
Les Mureaux	33,203
Houilles	32,801
Trappes	32,645
Montigny-le-Bretonneux	32,282

Demographics

In French, a man from the Yvelines is called Yvelinois (plural Yvelinois); a woman is Yvelinoise (plural Yvelinoises).

Population development since 1876

Historical population

Year Pop. ±% p.a. 1876 235,511 —     1881 236,471 +0.08% 1891 250,552 +0.58% 1901 270,228 +0.76% 1911 297,562 +0.97% 1921 321,237 +0.77% 1931 408,282 +2.43% 1936 428,166 +0.96% 1946 431,499 +0.08% 1954 519,976 +2.36%	Year Pop. ±% p.a. 1962 687,827 +3.56% 1968 854,382 +3.68% 1975 1,082,255 +3.44% 1982 1,196,111 +1.44% 1990 1,307,150 +1.12% 1999 1,354,304 +0.39% 2006 1,395,804 +0.43% 2011 1,413,635 +0.25% 2016 1,431,808 +0.26%
Sources: [7] [8]

Place of birth of residents

Place of birth of residents of Yvelines in 1999

Born in metropolitan France	Born outside metropolitan France
85.5%	14.5%
	Born in overseas France	Born in foreign countries with French citizenship at birth1	EU-15 immigrants2	Non-EU-15 immigrants
	1.1%	3.0%	4.2%	6.2%
1 This group is made up largely of former French settlers, such as Pieds-Noirs in Northwest Africa, followed by former colonial citizens who had French citizenship at birth (such as was often the case for the native elite in French colonies), as well as to a lesser extent foreign-born children of French expatriates. A foreign country is understood as a country not part of France in 1999, so a person born for example in 1950 in Algeria, when Algeria was an integral part of France, is nonetheless listed as a person born in a foreign country in French statistics. 2 An immigrant is a person born in a foreign country not having French citizenship at birth. An immigrant may have acquired French citizenship since moving to France, but is still considered an immigrant in French statistics. On the other hand, persons born in France with foreign citizenship (the children of immigrants) are not listed as immigrants.

Tourism

Palaces and châteaux

• Palace of Versailles
• Château de Breteuil
• Château du Haut-Buc
• Château de Dampierre
• Château de Jouy-en-Josas
• Château de Maisons
• Château de Rambouillet
• Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye
• Château of Thoiry
• Château de Vaux-sur-Seine
• Château de Mauvières
• Château du Pont
• Château de Villette
• Château de Millemont

Museums

• Museum of National Antiques (Saint-Germain-en-Laye)
• Museum of River and Canal Craft (Conflans-Sainte-Honorine)
• Horse-drawn Coach Museum (Versailles)
• Toy Museum (Poissy)
• Sheep Museum (Rambouillet)
• Cloth Museum of Jouy (Jouy-en-Josas)
• National Barn Museum of Port-Royal (Magny-les-Hameaux)
• International Museum of Naive Art
• Musée Lambinet (Versailles)
• Musée de la Grenouillère (Croissy-sur-Seine)
• Musée Fournaise (Chatou)

Artists' and writers' houses

• Maurice Denis's house, the Musée départemental Maurice Denis (Saint-Germain-en-Laye)
• André Derain's house (Chambourcy)
• Alexandre Dumas, père's Château de Monte-Cristo (Port-Marly)
• Maurice Ravel's house/museum (Montfort-l'Amaury)
• Jean-Claude Richard's family estate (Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche)
• Elsa Triolet-Aragon's house (Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines)
• Ivan Turgenev House (Bougival)
• Émile Zola's house (Médan)

Parks and gardens

• Chèvreloup Arboretum (Rocquencourt)
• Marly Estate (Marly-le-Roi)
• Vaux-sur-Seine Castle Garden (Vaux-sur-Seine)
• The King's Vegetable Garden (Versailles)
• Outdoor and entertainment base of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (Trappes)

• 
  Palace and Gardens of Versailles
• 
  The Grand Trianon
• 
  The Hameau de la Reine
• 
  The Venus of Brassempouy from the collection of the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye
• 
  Lavoir of Jumeauville

Politics

In both local and national elections, the department generally supports centre-right political candidates. Michel Rocard, who served as Prime Minister of France from 1988 to 1991 under President François Mitterrand, was an MP for the department in the Socialist Party. The president of the Departmental Council is Pierre Bédier, first elected in 2014.

Presidential elections 2nd round

Election		Winning Candidate	Party	%	2nd Place Candidate	Party	%
	2022 [9]	Emmanuel Macron	LREM	71.05	Marine Le Pen	FN	28.95
	2017 [10]	Emmanuel Macron	LREM	77.15	Marine Le Pen	FN	22.85
	2012	Nicolas Sarkozy	UMP	54.30	François Hollande	PS	45.70
	2007	Nicolas Sarkozy	UMP	58.71	Ségolène Royal	PS	41.29
	2002 [10]	Jacques Chirac	RPR	85.59	Jean-Marie Le Pen	FN	14.41
	1995 [11]	Jacques Chirac	RPR	60.64	Lionel Jospin	PS	39.36

Members of the National Assembly

In the 2017 legislative election, Yvelines elected the following representatives to the National Assembly:

Constituency		Member [12]	Party
	Yvelines's 1st constituency	Didier Baichère	La République En Marche!
	Yvelines's 2nd constituency	Jean-Noël Barrot	MoDem
	Yvelines's 3rd constituency	Béatrice Piron	La République En Marche!
	Yvelines's 4th constituency	Marie Lebec	La République En Marche!
	Yvelines's 5th constituency	Yaël Braun-Pivet	La République En Marche!
	Yvelines's 6th constituency	Natalia Pouzyreff	La République En Marche!
	Yvelines's 7th constituency	Michèle de Vaucouleurs	MoDem
	Yvelines's 8th constituency	Michel Vialay	The Republicans
	Yvelines's 9th constituency	Bruno Millienne	MoDem
	Yvelines's 10th constituency	Aurore Bergé	La République En Marche!
	Yvelines's 11th constituency	Nadia Hai	La République En Marche!
	Yvelines's 12th constituency	Florence Granjus	La République En Marche!

Senators

In the Senate, Yvelines is represented by:

• Toine Bourrat (DVD), since 2020
• Marta de Cidrac (LR), since 2017
• Gérard Larcher (LR), since 2007 (President of the Senate since 2014)
• Michel Laugier (UDI), since 2017
• Martin Lévrier (REM), since 2017
• Sophie Primas (LR), since 2011

See also

• Cantons of the Yvelines department
• Communes of the Yvelines department
• Arrondissements of the Yvelines department

References

1. "Répertoire national des élus: les conseillers départementaux". data.gouv.fr, Plateforme ouverte des données publiques françaises (in French). 4 May 2022.
2. "Téléchargement du fichier d'ensemble des populations légales en 2021". The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies. 28 December 2023.
3. "Gross domestic product (GDP) at current market prices by NUTS 3 regions". ec.europa.eu.
4. Populations légales 2019: 78 Yvelines, INSEE
5. Busson (abbé G.) Ledru(abbé A.) Actus pontificum Cenomannis in urbe degentium (1902), p. 112.
6. "Communiqué de la présidence de la République" (in French). Archived from the original on 15 June 2009. Retrieved 17 October 2009.
7. "Historique des Yvelines". Le SPLAF.
8. "Évolution et structure de la population en 2016". INSEE.
9. "Les résultats du second tour de l'élection présidentielle". France 24. 19 April 2022.
10. l'Intérieur, Ministère de. "Présidentielles". interieur.gouv.fr.
11. "Résultats de l'élection présidentielle de 1995 par département - Politiquemania". www.politiquemania.com.
12. Nationale, Assemblée. "Assemblée nationale ~ Les députés, le vote de la loi, le Parlement français". Assemblée nationale.

External links

• (in French) Prefecture of Yvelines
• (in French) Departmental council of Yvelines
• (in French) History of Famous People and Yvelines