^1 French Land Register data, which excludeestuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km2
Creuse (French pronunciation:[kʁøz]ⓘ;Occitan:Cruesa orCrosa) is adepartment in central France named after the riverCreuse. AfterLozère, it is the second least populated department inFrance. It is bordered byIndre andCher to the north,Allier andPuy-de-Dôme to the east,Corrèze to the south, andHaute-Vienne to the west. In 2020, the population of this department is 115,995, while the official estimates in 2022 is 113,711.
Guéret, thePrefecture of Creuse has a population approximately 12,000, making it the largest settlement in the department. The next biggest town isLa Souterraine and thenAubusson. The department is situated in the formerProvince ofLa Marche. Creuse is one of the most rural and sparsely populated departments in France, with apopulation density of 21 people/km2 (54 people/sq mi), and a 2019 population of 116,617 - thesecond-smallest of anyDepartments inFrance.[3] The land use is mostly agricultural and the department is well known for itschestnut andhazelnut production, and for theCharolais andLimousin cattle breeds.
Creuse is one of the original 83 departments created during theFrench Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from the formerprovince ofLa Marche.
TheCounty of Marche was a county inmedieval France that approximately corresponded to the moderndépartement of Creuse. Marche first appeared as a separate fief around the mid-10th century, whenWilliam III, Duke of Aquitaine, gave it to one of his vassals named Boso, who took the title of count. In the 12th century, the countship passed to the family ofLusignan. They also were sometimescounts of Angoulême and counts ofLimousin. With the death of the childless Count Guy in 1308, his possessions in La Marche were seized byPhilip IV of France. In 1316 the king made La Marche anappanage for his youngest son the Prince, afterwardsCharles IV. Several years later in 1327, La Marche passed into the hands of theHouse of Bourbon. The family ofArmagnac held it from 1435 to 1477, when it reverted to the Bourbons. In 1527 La Marche was seized byFrancis I and became part of the domains of the French crown. It was divided intoHaute Marche andBasse Marche, the estates of the former continuing until the 17th century. From 1470 to the Revolution, the province was under the jurisdiction of theParlement of Paris.
In 1886,Bourganeuf ville lumière, located in a remote part of Creuse, became somewhat improbably the third town in France to receive a public electricity supply. Three years later, in 1889, the construction of a primitive hydro-electric factory atCascade of the Jarrauds (Cascade des Jarrauds) on the little riverMaulde atSaint-Martin-Château, 14 kilometers (8.7 mi) away, established a more reliable electricity supply for the little town. The creation of a power line from the plant to Bourganeuf was supervised by an innovative engineer namedMarcel Deprez; this was the first time that a power line over such a long distance had been constructed in France. The achievement was crowned with the region's first telephone line, which was installed to permit instant communication between the generating station and the newly illuminated town.
It is in theMassif Central and permeated by theCreuse and its tributaries. The river is dammed at several locations both for water supply andhydroelectricity generation. As is typical for an inland area of continental Europe, Creuse has relatively cold winters with some snowfall into April, but also hot summers. Rain falls throughout the year because of the relatively high elevation.
The topography is principally rolling hills intersected by often steep valleys. The terrestrial ecology is typically cooltemperate with a species mix common in the western UK: withoak,ash,chestnut,hazel andPrunus species dominating the woodlands. There are no commercialvineyards. Much of the farming is beef cattle:Charolais andLimousin, and also sheep.
The most populous commune isGuéret, the prefecture. As the second-least populous department of France, Creuse has no big cities and towns. As of 2019, there are 5 communes with more than 2,000 inhabitants:[3]
The population peaked at 287,075 in 1851, after which it declined gently until the First World War. During and after the war, the decline in population became much more rapid both because of the death and disruption that characterised the war years and because of the higher wages available to any workers with marketable skills in the economically more dynamic towns and cities outside Creuse. By 1921 the registered population had slumped by almost 38,000 (approximately 14%) in ten years to 228,244, and the decline continued throughout the twentieth century.
Over the last four decades of the twentieth century Creuse experienced the greatest proportional population decline of any French department, from 164,000 in 1960 to 124,000 in 1999 – a decrease of 24%. The department is thus unofficially sometimes dubbed as the "capital of French depopulation" or the "Pskov Oblast of France".
Until the 1980s,Occitan was the primary language of rural areas. There remain three different Occitan dialects in use in Limousin, although their use is rapidly declining. These are:
in the North, theCrescent transition area between Occitan and French is sometimes considered as a separate (basically Occitan) dialect called Marchois (Occitan:Marchés).
The Creuse Cake is a dessert named after the region. It is made with butter and hazelnuts.[7] There are many varieties, and they are sold throughout France.[8]
The lawyerSerge Klarsfeld and the comicPopeck took refuge through the organization of Felix Chevrier, the castle Masgelier inLe Grand-Bourg and stayed there several months
François Baroin, French politician native son ofDun-le-Palestel The summers were devoted to the Creuse, where the mother of the little Frenchman had a house.
As a traditionally rural and lightly populated area, with ancient and typicalart de vivre, original stone architecture, no major urban center and many heritage site such ascastles,abbeys andCeltic stone monuments: the Creuse department has become aGreen tourism destination since the late 1990s.[citation needed] Creuse enjoys atemperate climate with mild springs and autumns, rather cold and snowy but sunny winters, and relatively warm and sunny summers, but not as hot as in the southern parts of France. Thanks to its preserved forested landscape, little pollution and wonderful stone buildings, many foreigners (notably British and Dutch, but also German and Belgian) have sought to buy holiday homes in Creuse.[citation needed]
The major tourist attractions are thetapestry museum inAubusson and the many castles, notably those of Villemonteix,Boussac, and Banizette. The monastery ofMoutier-d'Ahun has exceptional wood carvings from the 17th century. (fr:Abbaye de Moutier-d'Ahun). After World War 1, some towns in France set up pacifist war memorials. Instead of commemorating the glorious dead, these memorials denounce war with figures of grieving widows and children rather than soldiers. Such memorials provoked anger among veterans and the military in general. The most famous is atGentioux-Pigerolles in the department (see picture on the left). Below the column which lists the name of the fallen, stands an orphan in bronze pointing to an inscription 'Maudite soit la guerre' (Cursed be war). Feelings ran so high that the memorial was not officially inaugurated until 1990 and soldiers at the nearby army camp were under orders to turn their heads when they walked past.
The Chapelle du Mas-Saint-Jean is in Saint-Sulpice-le-Dunois. A local legend declares thatJoan of Arc prayed there in about 1430.[9]
Guéret, Creuse is also home to a large nearby animal park named Les Loups de Chabrières containing some of France's few remaining wolves, held in semi-captivity. It includes 24 European Grey Wolves, two Canadian White Wolves and two Canadian Black Wolves in five enclosures.
Motor racing Mas du Clos It is twelve kilometers from Aubusson at the foot of the family castle ofSaint-Avit-de-Tardes.Pierre Bardinon creates all pieces in 1963.
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