The different regions in France, and their boundaries

[altyfc]

Hello

I am working on a French travel site and would like to obtain data that tells me the geographical boundaries of different regions in France such as Brittany, Normandy, etc.

In short, I'm looking for a series of co-ordinates that define the boundaries for each of these regions.  Is this information freely available, do you know?

Thanks

Aaron

[Kim]

Hi Aaron,

Not sure exactly what you are getting at.  It's very easy to find a list of the regions of France and the departments that make up each region.  Try;

http://www.quid.fr/regions.html

Or here's a map:

http://www.yourfrenchconnexion.com/map-regions-france.htm

I would think either one of these gives you enough to get started with for a travel site.  Good luck!

Kind Regards,

Kim

[cassis]

[quote user="Kim"]

Or here's a map:

http://www.yourfrenchconnexion.com/map-regions-france.htm

I would think either one of these gives you enough to get started with for a travel site.  Good luck!

[/quote]

I wouldn't put too much faith in anything that site says - click on Normandy and you'll find that one of the major cities of Normandy is Le Mans. [Www]

[Gluestick]

Not only is post spam since it connected with a commercial website, but a web author using a forum about Fracne to assemble cogent and accurate data is a wee bit worrying..................

Of course, if you do check out the sit and for example, look at some of the towns in both UK and France which are listed as interesting, then perhaps, all is revealed.

 

[Albert the InfoGipsy]

Aaron,

If you mean a series of grid references or lat/long data it may be available, but I don't know where. Regions are usually defined as a set of departements, so any place in France you have a post code for can be assigned a region very easily. For a travel guide site this would be the easiest way to go. I've had to do similar things in the UK and France is a doddle by comparison.

Are you using an existing package for this or coding your own?

http://www.gauloise.com/carte-regions-france.html

 

[altyfc]

Thanks for the replies.

 

To Kim... thanks but that isn't quite what I'm after.  I have co-ordinate data (longitude/latitude) for multiple cities, towns and villages in France.  I want to work out - automatically - which region each location falls in, and I should be able to do this if I can define the boundaries of the regions.  In order to define those boundaries, I need co-ordinate data that determines the exact route that they follow.

To cassis... good point! :)

To Gluestick... I am simply asking a question, hopefully in a polite manner.  How is that spam??  Does it not make sense to ask on a forum devoted to France?  For goodness sake...

To Albert... yes, that is exactly what I am after.  At this stage we are focussing really on the main 22 or so regions (Brittany, Loire, Alsace, etc.) not so much concerned with the sub-division of those regions (although maybe that will come later, I don't know).  Thank you for the tip-off with regards to postcode data... I think we have that for most locations although possibly not all.  So, if I have the postcode '29900', I should immediately be able to decipher that, should I?  (In this case, it's somewhere in Concarneau... so Brittany).  If so, could you point me to a resource that might help with this further?

Thanks

Aaron

[altyfc]

[quote user="Albert the InfoGipsy"]Are you using an existing package for this or coding your own?[/quote]

Sorry, I forgot to answer this bit... we are doing everything in-house.

[Kim]

Hey Aaron,

I think Gluestick was aiming that spam comment at me.  Splat!  Sorry dude!

Anyway I certainly wasn't trying to spread spam.  I just quickly clicked on Google to give you a few links to get started.  Thought it was a simple minded sort of search, but guess I was wrong!  I'll be more careful about recommending sources next time.  The Quid link is solid anyway. 

Bon chance!

Kim

[altyfc]

Oh really...??  I'm not sure... I did wonder about that, but with the addition of "but a web author using a forum about Fracne [sic] to assemble cogent and accurate data is a wee bit worrying"... I took that to mean it was referring to me.

I don't really know... I don't think either of us is spamming.  I was simply asking a question, and you were simplying trying to help with an answer.   Ah well...

[cassis]

[quote user="altyfc"]

I have co-ordinate data (longitude/latitude) for multiple cities, towns and villages in France.  I want to work out - automatically - which region each location falls in, and I should be able to do this if I can define the boundaries of the regions.  In order to define those boundaries, I need co-ordinate data that determines the exact route that they follow.

[/quote]

So in a nutshell, you want to determine into which department and/or region a location falls given its lat and long?  Rather than allocating by postcode, which would seem the easiest and most logical way to do it? 

I would have thought it better to allocate postcodes rather than lat and long and go from there, if I was starting from scratch.  Is it too late to do that?

[altyfc]

Hi cassis

Yes, that's spot on.  Postcodes is a possibility and I suspect we could do it by that method, but getting a co-ordinate data is probably preferred.  Although we are starting with France, we might go on to do the same thing with other countries and it is probably going to be easier for us to have a system that will work across them all rather than being dealing with postcode data which is going to vary from one country to the next.

I hope this is making sense...

Thanks again

Aaron

[powerdesal]

Try using     http://www.geoportail.fr/    as a basic starting point, you get the co-ordinates of wherever you choose to be,

[Gluestick]

[quote user="Kim"]

Hey Aaron,

I think Gluestick was aiming that spam comment at me.  Splat!  Sorry dude!

Anyway I certainly wasn't trying to spread spam.  I just quickly clicked on Google to give you a few links to get started.  Thought it was a simple minded sort of search, but guess I was wrong!  I'll be more careful about recommending sources next time.  The Quid link is solid anyway. 

Bon chance!

Kim

[/quote]

Not guilty!

At the OP in fact. (See URLs at foot of post).

 

[altyfc]

Thanks for that link, powerdsal... French is not my strong point but I'll see if I can make sense of what that's about. :)

To Gluestick... that's a sig file.  They are fairly standard practice on forums and a number of members have them on here, including at least one moderator and the forum admin.  Are they not allowed?  I've posted here before and it was never an issue previously.

[Clair]

[quote user="altyfc"]that's a sig file.  They are fairly standard practice on forums and a number of members have them on here, including at least one moderator and the forum admin.  Are they not allowed?  I've posted here before and it was never an issue previously.[/quote]

Please check your PM inbox.

Forum Moderators.

[altyfc]

Thanks, Clair... have PMed back.

[Albert the InfoGipsy]

[quote user="altyfc"]

To Albert... yes, that is exactly what I am after.  At this stage we are focussing really on the main 22 or so regions (Brittany, Loire, Alsace, etc.) not so much concerned with the sub-division of those regions (although maybe that will come later, I don't know).  Thank you for the tip-off with regards to postcode data... I think we have that for most locations although possibly not all.  So, if I have the postcode '29900', I should immediately be able to decipher that, should I?  (In this case, it's somewhere in Concarneau... so Brittany).  If so, could you point me to a resource that might help with this further?

[/quote]

Aaron,

Is this a college exercise? You are vastly more likely to have postcode data than lat & long for most tourist sites. Anyone who is planning to define a load of complex geographical entities (one French region completely surrounds a small part of Spain) by vector mapping their boundaries when post code data is available has very little real-world programming experience.

How much do you know about France??????

The first two digits of all French post codes show the number of the departement (county) the place is in. The map I provided a link to shows the departements in each region. It would take me about 10 minutes to implement a lookup function that provides departement & region name for any postcode in France. For a suitable fee I can provide the code in VB, VBA, VB script, Javascript or in SQL for Oracle, MS Access, SQL Server or (at a push) MySQL.

 

[altyfc]

Hi Albert

No, it's not a college exercise.  I finished my college days some time ago. :)  We have both postcode data and lat/long for most sites.  I don't think the specific region you refer to would really present any problems - being a site solely about France, we won't have any points within the Spanish component anyhow, on this particular site at least.

[quote]How much do you know about France??????[/quote]

Ermm... I don't profess to be an expert but I must have been about 25-30 times, mostly during my childhood.  Spent our main Summer holiday there last year and we're going again this year.  Why do you ask?

It clearly sounds like - for France, at least - that postcode data will be a more useful (and perhaps easier) tool than perhaps co-ordinate data would be.  However, we are working on a suite of sites for other countries too, and we would probably want to decipher our points by the same method for each country.  This being the case, using lat/long info will provide us with a consistent system for all the sites we're working on, but it is of course based on 1) being able to get hold of the co-ordinate data for the boundaries for each country (hence my post here), and 2) being able to calculate whether points fall within the areas defined by those boundaries.

I hope this is making sense.

Thanks,

Aaron

 

[Fay]

Someone working on a French travel site who doesn't know much French and who went there a bit as a child...

I'm thinking I won't be rushing to that particular site for reliable information any time soon.

Sorry to be a bit harsh but honestly! You're not doing yourself or your employers any favours.

[yetagain]

OK, so perhaps a bit off topic but I find the 'regions' of France confusing. I live near Brive 'le portail riant du Midi' Where exactly is the midi? and where is perigord? and quercy? These are only those locally of which  I am aware.  Berry is also somewhere -- isn't it?

[Clair]

I think you're confusing administrative regions and geographical or traditional regions.

The administrative regions and departments do not necessarily match up with the geographical or traditional regions.

[yetagain]

I still have no idea where the midi, quercy etc are. How do I find out?

[Clair]

Use google! [:D]

Provinces of France

[yetagain]

Thanks, I would not have thought of using the word provinces.

Further  -- I have briefly looked at your link and still the midi does not exist. I once had a French teacher who said she was born there. Where?

 

[gosub]

[quote user="yetagain"]

Thanks, I would not have thought of using the word provinces.

Further  -- I have briefly looked at your link and still the midi does not exist. I once had a French teacher who said she was born there. Where?

 

[/quote]

Southern France

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Southern France (or the South of France), colloquially known as Le Midi, is a loosely defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Gironde, Spain, the Mediterranean Sea, Italy, and Switzerland south of the Jura. The region includes:

• Aquitaine
• Midi-Pyrénées
• Languedoc-Roussillon
• Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
• Corsica
• Rhone-Alpes
• Auvergne
• Limousin

This area corresponds in large part to Occitania; that to say, the territory in which Occitan (the langue d'oc) – as distinct from the langues d'oïl of northern France – was the historically dominant language.

The name le Midi derives from mi (middle) and di (day) in Old French. Midday was synonymous with the direction of south because in France the Sun is in the south at noon, like all of the Northern Hemisphere. The synonymy existed in Middle French as well, where meridien means both "midday" and "south."