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Yvelines
—  Department  —
Prefecture yvelines versailles
Prefecture building of the Yvelines department, in Versailles
Blason département fr Yvelines
Coat of arms
Yvelines-Position
Location of Yvelines in France
Coordinates: 48°50′N 1°55′E / 48.833, 1.917Coordinates: 48°50′N 1°55′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 General Council Pierre Bédier
Area1
 • Total 2,284 km2 (882 sq mi)
Population (2011)
 • Total 1,413,635
 • Rank 9th
 • Density 620/km2 (1,600/sq mi)
Time zone CET (UTC+1)
 • Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2)
Department number 78
Arrondissements 4
Cantons 39
Communes 262
^1  French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km2

Yvelines (French pronunciation: [ivlin]) is a French department in the region of Île-de-France.

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.

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 parlement when called upon to sit in a congressional sitting, jointly with the upper house in order to enact constitutional changes or, as happened most recently in June 2009, to listen to a formal declaration by the president.[1]

Geography[]

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).

Besides Versailles (the prefecture) 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.

Two regional parks can be found in Yvelines: the parc of the Haute Vallée de Chevreuse and part of the parc of Vexin Français.

Yvelines is home to one of France's best known golf courses, La Tuilerie-Bignon, in the village of Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche.

See also Map of Yvelines.

Demographics[]

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

Place of birth of residents[]

Template:France immigration

Tourism[]

Palaces and Châteaux[]

  • Palace of Versailles
  • Château of Breteuil
  • Château of Buc
  • Château of Dampierre
  • Château of Maisons-Lafitte
  • Château of Rambouillet
  • Château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye
  • Château of Thoiry
  • Château of Vaux-sur-Seine
  • Château of Mauvières
  • Château du Pont
  • Château Villette

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
  • Musee Lambinet (Versailles)

Artist's and Writer's Houses[]

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

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)

Politics of Yvelines[]

Former Prime Minister of France Michel Rocard, was an MP for this department, of the French Socialist Party.

Senators from Yvelines[]

  • Nicolas About (Centrist Union)
  • Jacques Bellanger (Socialist Party)
  • Dominique Braye (UMP)
  • Alain Gournac (UMP)
  • Gérard Larcher (UMP)

See also[]

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

References[]

External links[]


This page uses content from the English language Wikipedia. The original content was at Yvelines. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with this Familypedia wiki, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons License.
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