Department of France
Department of France in Occitanie
Gers (French pronunciation: [ʒɛʁ(s)] Occitan :Gers orGerç [dʒɛɾs] department in theregion ofOccitania , SouthwesternFrance . Gers is bordered by the departments ofHautes-Pyrénées andPyrénées-Atlantiques to the south,Haute-Garonne andTarn-et-Garonne to the east,Lot-et-Garonne to the north andLandes to the west.[ 3] Gers River , its inhabitants are called theGersois andGersoises inFrench . In 2019, it had a population of 191,377.[ 4]
In theMiddle Ages , theLordship of L'Isle-Jourdain was nearby.
Gers is one of the original 83 departments created during theFrench Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of theformer provinces ofGuyenne andGascony . In 1808 it lostLavit on its north-eastern side to the newly created department ofTarn-et-Garonne .[ 5]
The culture is largely agricultural, with great emphasis on the localgastronomical specialties such as:
Also, some prominent cultivated crops arecorn ,colza ,sunflowers andgrain .
TheGascon language is a dialect ofOccitan , but it is not widely spoken. The department is characterised by sleepybastide villages and rolling hills with the Pyrenees visible to the south.Alexandre Dumas, père created the famous Gersoisd'Artagnan , the fourthmusketeer ofThe Three Musketeers Lupiac .
A horse race at theAuteuil Hippodrome has been named after André Boingnères, a notable local race-horse owner and the successful Mayor ofTermes-d'Armagnac between 1951 and 1976.
Departmental Council of Gers [ edit ] The President of the Departmental Council of Gers is Philippe Dupouy of theSocialist Party since 2022.[ 1] Philippe Martin , who had been in office since 2014. The assembly comprises 34 seats, allocated as follow since the2015 departmental elections :
Members of the National Assembly [ edit ] Gers elected the following members of theNational Assembly during the2017 legislative election :
Historical population Year Pop. ±% p.a. 1801 257,609 — 1806 287,021 +2.19% 1821 301,336 +0.32% 1831 312,160 +0.35% 1841 311,447 −0.02% 1851 307,479 −0.13% 1861 298,931 −0.28% 1872 284,717 −0.44% 1881 281,532 −0.12% 1891 261,084 −0.75% 1901 238,448 −0.90% 1911 221,994 −0.71% 1921 194,406 −1.32%
Year Pop. ±% p.a. 1931 193,134 −0.07% 1936 192,451 −0.07% 1946 190,431 −0.11% 1954 185,111 −0.35% 1962 182,264 −0.19% 1968 181,577 −0.06% 1975 175,366 −0.50% 1982 174,154 −0.10% 1990 174,587 +0.03% 1999 172,335 −0.14% 2006 181,375 +0.73% 2011 188,893 +0.82% 2016 190,664 +0.19%
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found on
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source:[ 7] [ 8]
Located in Southwestern France, Gers is often referred to as amongst the least densely populated (30.5 people/km2 in 2016),[ 8] Western Europe . List of the 10 most populous communes of the department:[ 4]
Commune Population (2019) Auch 22,173 L'Isle-Jourdain 9,072 Condom 6,493 Fleurance 5,924 Eauze 3,975 Lectoure 3,672 Vic-Fezensac 3,546 Mirande 3,450 Gimont 3,016 Pavie 2,501
The annual rain varies from more than 900 mm in the south-west of the department, to less than 700 mm in the North-East (Auch ,Condom ,Lectoure ).
The winters vary, with only occasional freezing temperatures, but the climate remains mild and dry. The amount of sunshine is about 1950 hours/years.
The summers are hot and dry.Auch is, together withToulouse ,Nîmes ,Carpentras ,Ajaccio ,Marseille ,Toulon andPerpignan , one of the hottest cities in France.
According to recent data tourism represents annually:
610 000 tourists, 5.900.000 nights, 22.100 commercial beds, 2 400 paid employment related to tourism, the tourist represent an equivalent of 17.100 permanent inhabitants, their estimated expenditure is €141.000.000 .
International National Other
