Regions of France, matched to countries
Natural Earth’s file draws France as 101 departments, the tier below the regions. Size Versus joins them along their shared borders into the 18 regions below, each drawn at true scale and matched to the country closest to it in area and in population.
France has 18 regions: 13 in metropolitan France, Corsica included, and 5 overseas (French Guiana, Réunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Mayotte), each of which is also a department. The other French overseas territories are separate places on this site and are not counted here. Because the overseas regions lie on other continents, this page has no map of all 18.
The boundary or political status of Mayotte is contested. Size Versus draws Natural Earth’s de facto outline, the boundary as it is held on the ground, and takes no position on it.
Population: the 2022 figures Wikidata holds, for 17 of the 18 regions. The only figure it has for Mayotte (2024) is a different year, and it is shown with that year. Every population on these pages carries its year; they are not one count taken on one day.
At a glance
- Nouvelle-Aquitaine, the largest, is 215× the size of Mayotte, the smallest.
- The five largest, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, French Guiana, Occitania, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Grand Est, cover 58% of France.
- None of the 18 is larger than the United Kingdom (244,000 km²).
- Île-de-France, the most crowded, has 1,023 people per km²: 295× French Guiana, the least crowded (3.5).
- Half of the people counted live in the 5 most populous (Île-de-France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Occitania and Hauts-de-France), which cover 43% of the area; the years of the figures differ.
- 2 of the 18 have more people than the median of the 38 European countries listed here (6.6 million).
- 13 of the 18 are within 10% in area of a European country, among them Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and Slovakia (1.01×), French Guiana and Austria (1.01×), Réunion (France) and Luxembourg (1.01×).
Every region matched to a country
Largest first. The matches are the countries closest in area and in population from Natural Earth’s country list; contested places and dependencies are never used as matches. Population is the newest figure Wikidata holds, with its year.
- Nouvelle-Aquitaine85,000 km² · 6.1 million (2022)Size ofAustria1.01× · 84,000 km²People ofTurkmenistan1.00× · 6.1 million
- French Guiana83,200 km² · 288,000 (2022)Size ofAustria0.99× · 84,000 km²People ofVanuatu0.96× · 300,000
- Occitania73,500 km² · 6.1 million (2022)Size ofPanama0.99× · 74,500 km²People ofLebanon1.00× · 6.1 million
- Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes70,900 km² · 8.2 million (2022)Size ofUnited Arab Emirates1.00× · 71,100 km²People ofHonduras0.98× · 8.3 million
- Grand Est57,400 km² · 5.6 million (2022)Size ofTogo1.01× · 56,900 km²People ofNorway0.99× · 5.6 million
- Bourgogne-Franche-Comté48,000 km² · 2.8 million (2022)Size ofDominican Republic0.99× · 48,400 km²People ofAlbania1.00× · 2.8 million
- Centre-Val de Loire39,400 km² · 2.6 million (2022)Size ofBhutan0.97× · 40,400 km²People ofNamibia1.02× · 2.5 million
- Pays de la Loire32,100 km² · 3.9 million (2022)Size ofGuinea-Bissau0.98× · 32,800 km²People ofCroatia1.00× · 3.9 million
- Hauts-de-France32,000 km² · 6.0 million (2022)Size ofGuinea-Bissau0.97× · 32,800 km²People ofEl Salvador0.99× · 6.0 million
- Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur31,300 km² · 5.2 million (2022)Size ofBelgium1.02× · 30,700 km²People ofCentral African Republic1.00× · 5.2 million
- Normandy30,100 km² · 3.3 million (2022)Size ofLesotho1.00× · 30,100 km²People ofMongolia0.98× · 3.4 million
- Brittany27,300 km² · 3.4 million (2022)Size ofSolomon Islands1.01× · 27,200 km²People ofMongolia1.00× · 3.4 million
- Île-de-France12,100 km² · 12.4 million (2022)Size ofVanuatu0.98× · 12,300 km²People ofBolivia1.01× · 12.2 million
- Corsica (France)8,670 km² · 351,000 (2022)Size ofLebanon87% · 10,000 km²People ofIceland0.96× · 364,000
- Réunion (France)2,580 km² · 881,000 (2022)Size ofLuxembourg0.99× · 2,610 km²People ofGuyana1.00× · 879,000
- Guadeloupe1,660 km² · 384,000 (2022)Size ofComoros0.99× · 1,670 km²People ofBahamas0.96× · 399,000
- Martinique1,100 km² · 361,000 (2022)Size ofSão Tomé and Príncipe1.06× · 1,040 km²People ofIceland0.99× · 364,000
- Mayotte395 km² · 321,000 (2024)Size ofSaint Vincent and the Grenadines1.07× · 368 km²People ofVanuatu1.07× · 300,000
Too small to see on the map
At the scale of the map these units are a few pixels wide or less, so they are ringed on the map and drawn here as discs of true relative area. Each is matched to the small countries and island nations, not to the countries of 1,000 km² and more.
- Guadeloupe1,660 km² · official 1,6300.99× Comoros1,670 km²
- Martinique1,100 km² · official 1,1301.06× São Tomé and Príncipe1,040 km²
- Mayotte395 km² · official 3741.07× Saint Vincent and the Grenadines368 km²
The closest matches in size
How crowded they are
Beside the regions of other countries
Every region also has a closest match, by area and by people, among the 377 regions of the other 12 countries. All the matches, in both directions, are on one page.
Sources and method
- Outlines
- Natural Earth, 1:10m Admin 1 - States, Provinces, public domain. The file draws France as 101 departments; the 18 regions listed are those pieces joined along their shared borders, and each joined outline is measured whole. Nothing is redrawn.
- Boundary
- De facto, as drawn by Natural Earth.
- Area
- Measured on the WGS84 ellipsoid from the full-detail outlines, shown rounded. The 18 areas add up to 637,000 km², within 0.1% of the country’s measured area.
- Official figures
- Area, population and capital from Wikidata (CC0), fetched 2026-11-12. Population is the 2022 figure where Wikidata has it, otherwise its newest; the year is shown.
- Labels checked
- Natural Earth’s labels were compared with Wikidata’s. 5 ISO 3166-2 codes differ (French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion (France) and Mayotte); no code is shown for those.
- Data built
- 2026-11-12