TheÎle-de-France (/ˌiːldəˈfrɒ̃s/;French:[ildəfʁɑ̃s]ⓘ;lit.'Island of France') is the most populous of the eighteenregions of France, with an official estimated population of 12,271,794 residents on 1 January 2023.[1] Containing the capital city of France,Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the country and often called theParis Region[3] (French:Région parisienne,pronounced[ʁeʒjɔ̃paʁizjɛn]). Île-de-France is densely populated and retains a prime economic position on the national stage, and it covers 12,012 square kilometres (4,638 square miles), about 2% ofmetropolitan French territory. Its 2017 population was nearly one-fifth of the national total.[4]
The region is made up of eight administrativedepartments: Paris,Essonne,Hauts-de-Seine,Seine-Saint-Denis,Seine-et-Marne,Val-de-Marne,Val-d'Oise andYvelines. It was created as the "District of the Paris Region" in 1961. In 1976, when its status was aligned with the French administrative regions created in 1972, it was renamed after the historic province of Île-de-France. Residents are sometimes referred to asFranciliens, an administrative word created in the 1980s. The GDP of the region in 2019 was nearly one-third of the French,[5]: 12 and 5% of the European Union's.[5]: 12 It has the highest per capita GDP of any French region.[6]
Beyond the city limits of Paris, the region has many other important historic sites, including the palaces ofVersailles andFontainebleau, as well as the most-visited tourist attraction in France,Disneyland Paris. Although it is the richest French region, a significant number of residents live in poverty. The official poverty rate in the Île-de-France was 15.9% in 2015. The region has witnessed increasing income inequality in recent decades, and rising housing prices have pushed the less affluent outside Paris.[7]
Although the modern name Île-de-France literally means Island of France, its etymology is unclear. Despite its name, the region itself is not an island. The "island" may refer to the land between the riversOise,Marne andSeine, or it may also have been a reference to theÎle de la Cité, where the French royal palace and cathedral were located.[citation needed]
The Île-de-France was inhabited by theParisii, a sub-tribe of theCelticSenones, from around the middle of the 3rd-century BC.[10][11] One of the area's major north–south trade routes crossed the Seine on theîle de la Cité; the meeting place of land and water trade routes gradually became an important trading centre.[12] The Parisii traded with many river towns (some as far away as the Iberian Peninsula) and minted their own coins for that purpose.[13]
TheRomans conquered the area in 52 BC and began their settlement on Paris'sLeft Bank.[14] It became a prosperous city with a forum, baths, temples, theatres, and an amphitheatre.[15]Christianity was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century AD bySaint Denis, the first Bishop of Paris. According to legend, when Denis refused to renounce his faith before Roman authorities, he was beheaded on the hill that became known asMons Martyrum (Latin "Hill of Martyrs"), later "Montmartre". The legend further states that Denis walked headless from this hill to the north of the city. The place that he finally fell and was buried became an important religious shrine, theBasilica of Saint-Denis.[16]
Clovis the Frank, the first king of theMerovingian dynasty, made the city his capital in 508. As the Frankish domination of Gaul began, there was a gradual immigration by theFranks to Paris and the ParisianFrancien dialects were born. Fortification of the Île de la Cité failed to avertsacking by Vikings in 845, but Paris's strategic importance—with its bridges preventing ships from passing—was established by successful defence in theSiege of Paris (885–86). In 987,Hugh Capet,Count of Paris (comte de Paris) andDuke of the Franks (duc des Francs), was electedKing of the Franks (roi des Francs). Under the rule of theCapetian kings, Paris gradually became the largest and most prosperous city in France.[16]
The Kings of France enjoyed getting away from Paris and hunting in the game-filled forests of the region. They built palatial hunting lodges, most notablyPalace of Fontainebleau and thePalace of Versailles. From the time of Louis XIV to the French Revolution, Versailles was the official residence of the Kings and the seat of the French government. Île-de-France became the term used for the territory of Paris and the surrounding province, which was administered directly by the King.
During theFrench Revolution, the royal provinces were abolished and divided into departments, and the city and region were governed directly by the national government. After World War II, as Paris faced a major housing shortage, hundreds of massive apartment blocks for low-income residents were built around the edges of Paris. In the 1950s and the 1960s, thousands of immigrants settled in the communes bordering the city. In 1959, under PresidentCharles De Gaulle, a new region was created out of six departments, which corresponded approximately with the historic region, with the nameDistrict de la région de Paris ("District of the Paris Region"). On 6 May 1976, as part of the process ofregionalisation, the district was reconstituted with increased administrative and political powers and renamed the Île-de-France region.
Île-de-France has a land area of 12,011 km2 (4,637 sq mi). It is composed of eightdepartments centred on its innermost department and capital, Paris. Around the department and municipality of Paris, urbanisation fills a first concentric ring of three departments commonly known as thepetite couronne ("small ring"); it extends into a second outer ring of four departments known as thegrande couronne ("large ring"). Theformer department of Seine, abolished in 1968, included the city proper and parts of thepetite couronne.
The outer parts of the Île-de-France remain largely rural. Agricultural land, forest and natural spaces occupy 78.9 percent of the region, and 28 percent of the region's land is in urban use.[17]
The RiverSeine flows through the middle of the region, which is crisscrossed by its tributaries and sub-tributaries, including the RiversMarne,Oise andEpte. The RiverEure does not cross the region but receives water from several rivers in the Île-de-France, including the Drouette and the Vesgre. The major rivers are navigable, and, because of the modest variations of altitude in the region (between 10 metres (33 ft) and 200 metres (660 ft)), they have a tendency to meander and curve. They also create many lakes and ponds, some of which have been transformed into recreation areas, including Moisson-Mousseaux, Cergy-Neuville andVilleneuve-Saint-Georges.
Paris as an engine of the global economy: the skyscrapers ofLa Défense, the largest purpose-built business district of Europe, with 3.35 million m² (36 million sq. ft) of office space.[18]
Île-de-France produced €742 billion (gross domestic product)[5] or around 1/3 of theeconomy of France in 2019.[5]: 12 The regional economy has gradually shifted toward high-value-added service industries (finance, IT services etc.) and high-tech manufacturing (electronics, optics, aerospace etc.).[19] In 2014, industry represented just under five percent of active enterprises in the region, and 10.2 percent of salaried workers. Commerce and services account for 84 percent of the business establishments in the region, and have 83.3 percent of the salaried employees.[20] Financial services and insurance are important sectors of the regional economy; the major French banks and insurance companies, includingBNP Paribas,Société Générale andCrédit Agricole, all have their headquarters in the region. The region also hosts the headquarters of the top French telecom companies and utilities, includingOrange S.A.,Veolia andEDF. The French stock market, theBourse de Paris, now known asEuronext Paris, occupies a historical building in the center of Paris and is ranked fourth among global stock markets, after New York, Tokyo and London.[21][22] Other major sectors of the regional economy include energy companies (Orano,Engie,Électricité de France andTotal S.A.). The two major French automobile manufacturers,Renault, inFlins-sur-Seine, andGroupe PSA, inPoissy, do much of their assembly work outside France but still have research centre and large plants in the region. The leading French and European aerospace and defense companies, includingAirbus,Thales Group,Dassault Aviation,Safran Aircraft Engines, theEuropean Space Agency,Alcatel-Lucent, andArianespace, have a large presence in the region.[21]
The region is served byCharles de Gaulle Airport. The airport is also the hub ofAir France. In 2024, the airport handled 70,290,260 passengers and 466,543 aircraft movements, making it theworld's fourteenth busiest airport andEurope's third busiest airport (afterHeathrow andIstanbul) in terms of passenger numbers.[23] Charles de Gaulle is the busiest airport within theEuropean Union. In terms of cargo traffic, the airport is the second busiest in Europe, afterFrankfurt, handling 1,914,681 tonnes of cargo in 2024.[23] As of 2025, it was the airport served by the second highest number ofairlines, afterSuvarnabhumi Airport, with 105 airlines operating from it.[24]Orly Airport also remains the busiest French airport for domestic traffic and thesecond busiest French airport overall in passenger traffic, with 33,123,027 passengers in 2024.
The energy sector is also well established in the region. The nuclear power industry, with its major firm beingOrano, has its headquarters in Île-de-France, as does the main French oil companyTotal S.A., the top French company in the Fortune Global 500, and the main electric utility,Électricité de France. The energy firmEngie also has its main offices in the region atLa Défense.
In 2018 just 7.2 percent of employees in the region were engaged in industry; 62.3 percent were engaged in commerce and market services; 25.5 percent in non-market services, including government, health and education; 4.8 percent in construction; and 0.2 percent in agriculture.[25]
The largest non-government employers in the region as of the end of 2015 were the airlineAir France (40,657); theSNCF (French Railways, 31,955); the telecom firmOrange S.A. (31,497); the bankSociété Générale (27,361); the automotive firmGroupe PSA (19,648);EDF (Electricité de France, 18,199); andRenault (18,136).[26] While the Petite Couronne, or departments closest to Paris, previously employed the most industrial workers, the largest number is now in the Grande Couronne, the outer departments.[25]
The unemployment rate in the region stood at 8.6% at the end of 2016. It varied within the region from 7.8 percent in the city of Paris, to a high of 12.7 percent inSeine-Saint-Denis, and 10 percent inVal-d'Oise; to regional lows of 7.4 percent inYvelines; 7.5 percent inHauts-de-Seine; 7.7 percent inEssonne; 7.9 percent inSeine et Marne, and 8.8 percent inVal de Marne.[27]
In 2018, 48 percent of the land of the Île-de-France was devoted to agriculture; 569,000 hectares were cultivated. The most important crops are grains (66 percent), followed by beets (7 percent), largely for industrial use, and grass for grazing. In 2014, 9,495 hectares were devoted to bio-agriculture. However, the number of persons employed in agriculture in the region dropped 33 percent between 2000 and 2015 to just 8,460 persons in 2015.[28]
The Île-de-France is one of the world's top tourist destinations, with a record 23.6 million hotel arrivals in 2017, and an estimated 50 million visitors in all types of accommodation. The largest number of visitors came from the United States, followed by England, Germany and China.[29][30][31] The top tourist attraction in the region in 2017 wasDisneyland Paris, which received 14.8 million visitors in 2017, followed by theCathedral of Notre-Dame (est. 12 million) and theBasilica of Sacre-Coeur at Montmartre (est. 11.1 million visitors).[32]
Seat of the regional council of Île-de-France in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine (2021)
The Regional Council is the legislative body of the region. Its seat is inSaint-Ouen-sur-Seine, at 2 rue Simone-Veil. On 15 December 2015, a list of candidates of the Union of the Right, a coalition of centrist andright-wing parties, led byValérie Pécresse, narrowly won the regional election, defeating the Union of the Left, a coalition of socialists and ecologists. The socialists had governed the region for the preceding 17 years.
Since 2016 the regional council has 121 members from the Union of the Right, 66 from the Union of the Left and 22 from thefar-right National Front.[34]
Delegates General for the District of the Paris Region
1961–1969:Paul Delouvrier (civil servant) – Very influential term. Responsible for the creation of theRER express subway network in the Île-de-France and beyond.
1969–1975: Maurice Doublet (civil servant)
1975–1976: Lucien Lanier (civil servant)
Presidents of the Regional Council of Île-de-France
As of 1 January 2017[update], the population density of the region was 1010.9 inhabitants per square kilometer. The densest department is Paris itself, with 21,066 inhabitants per square kilometer. The least dense département isSeine-et-Marne with 239 residents per square kilometer.[35]
As of 2015[update] according to the official government statistics agency INSEE, 15.9 percent of residents of the region had an income below the poverty level; for residents of the city of Paris, this proportion was 16.2 percent. Poverty was highest in the departments ofSeine-Saint-Denis (29 percent),Val-d'Oise (17.1 percent), andVal-de-Marne (16.8 percent). It was lowest inYvelines (9.7 percent);Seine-et-Marne (11.8 percent),Essonne (12.9 percent), andHauts-de-Seine (12.4 percent). The department of Hauts-de-Seine is the wealthiest in France in terms of per capita GDP.[36]
At the 2019 census, 75.1% of the inhabitants of Île-de-France were natives ofMetropolitan France, 1.7% were born inOverseas France, and 23.1% were born in foreign countries.[39] A quarter of the immigrants living in the Île-de-France were born in Europe (38% of whom in Portugal), 29% were born in theMaghreb and 22% in the rest of Africa (in particularWest andCentral Africa), 3% were born in Turkey and 15% in the rest of Asia, 5% were born in the Americas (not counting those born in theFrench overseas departments in the Americas, who are not legally immigrants), and 0.1% in Oceania (not counting those born in the French territories of the South Pacific, who are not legally immigrants).[40]
In 2013, roughly 2,206,000 residents of the Île-de-France were immigrants, born outside of France. This amounted to 18.5% of the population of the region, twice the national average. Four out of ten immigrants living in France reside in the region. The immigrant population of the Île-de-France has a higher proportion of non-Europeans, as well as a higher proportion of immigrants with an advanced level of education, than the rest of France. The population of immigrants is more widely distributed throughout the region than it was in the early 2000s, but the concentrations remain high in certain areas, particularly Paris and the department of Seine-Saint-Denis. The proportion of residents born outside of Metropolitan France rose between the 1999 (19.7%) and 2019 censuses (24.9%).[41][39]
Place of birth of residents of Île-de-France (at the 1968, 1975, 1982, 1990, 1999, 2008, 2013, and 2019 censuses)
^a Persons born abroad of French parents, such asPieds-Noirs and children of French expatriates. ^b An immigrant is by French definition a person born in a foreign country and who did not have French citizenship at birth. An immigrant may have acquired French citizenship since moving to France, but is still listed as an immigrant in French statistics. On the other hand, persons born in France with foreign citizenship (the children of immigrants) are not listed as immigrants. ^c Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria
"Petite Couronne" redirects here. For the municipality in Upper Normandy, seePetit-Couronne.
Map of thePetite Couronne with ParisLocator map showing the municipalities in which thePetite Couronne is divided. Paris is divided into its20 arrondissements.
TheMétropole du Grand Paris is an administrative structure that comprises Paris and the three departments of thePetite Couronne, plus seven additional communes in theGrande Couronne.
The table below shows some statistical information about the area including Paris:
TheGrande Couronne[45] (literally Large Crown, or outer ring) includes the outer four departments of Île-de-France, which do not border Paris. They areSeine-et-Marne (77),Yvelines (78),Essonne (91) andVal-d'Oise (95). The last three departments formed theSeine-et-Oise department until it was disbanded in 1968. The city ofVersailles is part of the area.
^ab"Populations légales des régions en 2020" [Legal populations of the regions in 2020].insee.fr (in French). Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. 19 December 2022. Populations légales des régions en vigueur au 1er janvier 2023.Archived from the original on 23 January 2023. Retrieved27 March 2023.
^Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Contribution des CCI de Paris - Île-de-France à la révision du SDRIF, page 110."TEM Paris – La Défense – QCA"(PDF) (in French). Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2 March 2007. Retrieved1 September 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^"Yerevan - Partner Cities".Yerevan Municipality Official Website. Technology Management Center of Yerevan. Archived fromthe original on 5 November 2013. Retrieved4 November 2013.
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