The name of the new seven major regions, from the territorial reform which reduced the number of metropolitan areas, is endorsed on Thursday in the Official Journal. The number of metropolitan areas is reduced from 21 to 12, through the merger of some of them.
The region “Grand Est” (capital Strasbourg) and refers to the ancient regions of Alsace, Champagne-Ardenne and Lorraine.
The merge of the regions of Basse-Normandie and Haute-Normandie has been called just “Normandy” (capital Rouen).
The name “Occitanie” (capital Toulouse) corresponds to the region after the consolidation of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées regions.
“Hauts-de-France” (capital Lille) is the region after the merger of Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy regions.
The name “Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes” (capital Lyon) is the region after the consolidation of Auvergne and Rhône-Alpes.
The region through the amalgamation of Aquitaine, Limousin and Poitou-Charentes is now called “New Aquitaine” (capital Bordeaux).
Finally the name “Bourgogne-Franche-Comté” (capital Dijon) designates the region after the consolidation of Burgundy and Franche-Comté regions.
The other regions of metropolitan France are Bretagne, Pays de la Loire, Centre-Val de Loire, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur et Ile-de-France. Corsica has no region name.
Regions meet in congress on Thursday in Reims , the first since the establishment of the major regions.
