Communes in France

A commune in France is a local 'administrative unit' and can be as small as a few hectares - or as large as Paris! There are about 36,000 communes in total.

Almost every town or village you have ever heard of in France is a commune, although occasionally very small places are part of an adjoining commune, or a cluster of scattered small villages might have different village names but share the same commune name (this will be marked on the village signpost as you enter).

Communes themselves then form part of one of the 96 departments of France, which themselves are part of the 22 regions of metropolitan France.

Starting from the indexes below you can locate almost everywhere in France - and certain information - their position on a map, local places of interest, airports and hotels nearby etc. Either search by alphabetical order or see the communes listed by department.

 

France communes - the project. We need your help!

Each commune listed has a comment form so that you can provide us a with a sentence or two to describe your own local or favourite commune(s). We would be very grateful if you could spare a few minutes to help us out - visiting all 36,000 communes ourselves might be a little time-consuming! Even better - send us a photo taken within the commune - we would love to have photos of as many communes as possible so that we can create a giant 'photographic impression' of France. See a photographic tour of France for current progress.