Ile-de-France Hotels France

Ile-de-France Ile-de-France is the most populous of the 26 administrative regions of France with 11. 7 million inhabitants – in fact it has a larger population than Austria, Belgium or Greece – and a similar size population to the US State of Ohio or Canada’s Ontario. Many French people refer to it by its former name of Region Parisienne. 90% of the land area of 12K sq km is occupied by the Paris metropolitan area. The Ile-de-France is situated in north central France, and though Paris and suburbs dominate the region, the area is not uniform.

A fertile concavity lying at the centre of the Paris Basin, the Ile-de-France is drained by the Seine river and its major tributaries, the Marne and Oise. Ile-de-France’s sub-regions Valois, Beauce, Brie and Soissonais – consist of flat limestone plains covered with loess. Forests, including those of Fontainebleau and Compiegne grow on sandy areas between the plains.

Ile-de-France consists of 8 departments clustered around the central department, Paris. Around this is an urbanised ring of three departments called the petite couronne, surrounded by a second ring of four departments, the grande couronne. The Petite Couronne consist of Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne, and the grande Couronne are Seine-et-Marne, Yvelines, Essonne and Val-d’Oise.

As well as the favourite delights of Paris there are splendid cathedrals, medieval abbeys and wonderful chateaux unsurpassed in any other region in France. On the way to Versailles the visitor passes through scenic countryside of the Vallee de Chevreuse with its picturesque villages, and on the way from Fontainebleau lies Barbizon made famous as an artist’s colony.