Seine (department) - Split-up

Split-up

At the first French census in 1801, the Seine department had 631,585 inhabitants (87% of them living in the city of Paris, 13% in the suburbs) and was the second most populous department of the vast Napoleonic Empire (behind the Nord department), more populous than even the dense departments of what is now Belgium and the Netherlands. With the growth of Paris and its suburbs, the population of the Seine department increased tremendously, and by 1968 it contained 5,700,754 residents (45% of them living in the city of Paris, 55% in the suburbs), and was now by far the most populous department of France. It was judged that the Seine department was now too large and ungovernable, and so on January 1, 1968 it was split into four smaller departments: Paris, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, and Val-de-Marne.

In detail, the break-up of the Seine department was carried out like this:

• the city (commune) of Paris was turned into a department in its own right, with no other communes inside this department. The official number 75 which was used for the Seine department was given to the new Paris department.
• To the south and southeast of the city, 29 communes of the Seine department were grouped with 18 communes of the Seine-et-Oise department (which was also abolished in 1968) to form the new Val-de-Marne department, and the official number 94 was assigned to this department (a number previously used for the Territoires du Sud territory in the Saharan part of French Algeria).
• To the west of Paris, 27 communes of the Seine department were grouped with nine communes of Seine-et-Oise to form the new Hauts-de-Seine department, and the official number 92 was assigned to this department (a number previously used for the department of Oran in French Algeria).
• Finally, to the north and north-east the 24 remaining communes of the Seine department were grouped with 16 communes of the Seine-et-Oise department to form the new Seine-Saint-Denis department, and the official number 93 was assigned to this department (a number previously used for the department of Constantine in French Algeria).

Taken together, Hauts-de-Seine, Val-de-Marne, and Seine-Saint-Denis, three departments' known in France as the petite couronne (i.e. "small ring", as opposed to the "large ring" of the more distant suburbs), plus the city of Paris, are larger than the former Seine department (480 km² for the Seine department vs. 762 km² for Paris and petite couronne).