- Corrèze
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For other uses, see Corrèze (disambiguation).
Corrèze — Department — 
Coat of armsLocation of Corrèze in France
Coordinates: 45°20′N 01°50′E / 45.333°N 1.833°ECoordinates: 45°20′N 01°50′E / 45.333°N 1.833°E Country France Region Limousin Prefecture Tulle Subprefectures Brive-la-Gaillarde
UsselGovernment – President of the General Council François Hollande (PS) Area1 – Total 5,857 km2 (2,261.4 sq mi) Population (2007) – Total 242,038 – Rank 80th – Density 41.3/km2 (107/sq mi) Time zone CET (UTC+1) – Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2) Department number 19 Arrondissements 3 Cantons 37 Communes 286 ^1 French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km2 Corrèze ([kɔ.ʁɛːz]; Occitan: Corresa) is a department in south central France, named after the Corrèze River.
The inhabitants of the department are called Corréziens or Corréziennes according to gender.
Contents
History
Corrèze is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It includes part of the former province of Limousin (the Bas-Limousin).
The 1851 census recorded a population level of 320,866: this remained relatively constant for the rest of the nineteenth century. During the twentieth century, however, Corrèze shared the experience of many of the country's rural departments as the population fell steadily.
Within Corrèze the nineteenth century railway planners, influenced in part by the department's topography, endowed Brive-la-Gaillarde with good connections and a major junction from which railway lines fanned out in six different directions. The railways arrived in 1860, at an opportune moment, directly after phylloxera had destroyed the local wine industry. The new railways enabled the farms in the area surrounding Brive to specialise in fruits and vegetables which could now be transported rapidly to the larger population centres of central and southern France. Locally, the new agriculture triggered the development, in the Brive basin, of related businesses and industries such as the manufacture of jams and liquors, as well as timber/paper based packaging businesses.
In 1900 both Brive and the prefecture, Tulle each had fewer than 20,000 inhabitants. By 2010 the population of the Brive urban area was nearly 90,000, however, while Tulle still had fewer than 20,000 registered inhabitants.
Geography
The department is part of the current region of Limousin. It is surrounded by the department of Creuse, Haute-Vienne, Cantal, Puy-de-Dôme, Lot, and Dordogne. Tulle is the prefecture of Corrèze and Brive-la-Gaillarde the largest city.
Politics
The President of the General Council is François Hollande of the Socialist Party.
Party seats Union for a Popular Movement 18 • Socialist Party 16 • French Communist Party 2 • Miscellaneous Left 1 Personalities
Personalities who were born or have significantly lived in Corrèze include:
- The House of Noailles, dukes of Noailles and Ayen, which provided three marshals of France, one admiral of France and one archbishop of Paris
- The House of La Tour d'Auvergne, viscounts of Turenne
- Bernard de Ventadour (1135–1195), a famous troubadour born at the castle of Ventadour
- Pope Clement VI (1291–1352), 198th pope, born Pierre Roger in Rosiers-d'Egletons
- Pope Innocent VI (1295–1362), 199th pope, born Etienne Aubert in Beyssac
- Pope Gregory XI (1329–1378), 201st pope and last French pope, born Pierre Roger de Beaufort in Rosiers-d'Egletons
- Etienne Baluze (1630–1718), scholar and personal librarian of Colbert
- Guillaume Dubois (1656–1723), cardinal and statesman, Prime Minister of France during the Régence
- Jean-Baptiste Treilhard (1742–1810), political figure of the French Revolution, member of Committee of Public Safety, president of the Convention that judged and sentenced to death King Louis XVI, member of the Directory and one of the redactors of the Napoleonic codes; he is buried in the Panthéon
- Pierre-André Latreille (1762–1833), zoologist and entomologist
- Guillaume Marie Anne Brune (1763–1815), marshal of France and marshal of the Empire, also godfather of author Alexandre Dumas
- Robert Nivelle (1856–1924), general, commander-in-chief of the French armies on the Western Front in 1917
- Eugène Freyssinet (1879–1962), structural and civil engineer, major pioneer of prestressed concrete
- Henri Queuille (1884–1970), mayor of Neuvic (1912–1965), deputy for Corrèze (1914–1935 and 1946–1958), senator for Corrèze (1935–1941) who refused to vote full powers to Pétain in 1940, three times Prime Minister of France during the Fourth Republic
- Edmond Michelet (1899–1970), politician and statesman, who did the first act of resistance of World War II in France by distributing tracts calling to continue the war in all Brive-la-Gaillarde's mailboxes on 17 June 1940, one day before De Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June
- André Malraux (1901–1976), writer, adventurer and statesman, member of the French Resistance in Corrèze during the Second World War
- Eric Rohmer (1920–2010), film director
- Marcel Conche (1922– ), philosopher
- Jacques Delors (1925– ), economist and politician, 8th President of the European Commission (1985–1994), father of socialist leader Martine Aubry
- Jacques Chirac (1932– ), deputy to the Assemblée Nationale for Corrèze (1967–1995), President of the departement's General Council (1970–1979), Prime Minister of France (1974–1976 and 1986–1988), Mayor of Paris (1977–1995) and 22nd President of the French Republic (1995–2007)
- Bernadette Chirac (1933– ), member of the departement's General Council and aide to the mayor of Sarran
- François Hollande (1954– ), deputy for Corrèze (1988–1993 and 1997–present), mayor of Tulle (2001–2008), President of the department's General Council (2008–present), leader of the Socialist Party (1997–2008), socialist candidate for the 2012 presidential election
- Marie-Anne Montchamp (1957– ), politician, Secretary of State for Solidarities and Social Cohesion in the current Government of France
- Valérie Pécresse (1967– ), politician, Minister of the Budget in in the current Government of France
- Cédric Villani (1973– ), mathematician, Fields Medalist in 2010
- Cédric Heymans (1978– ), French international rugby union player
- Dimitri Yachvili (1980– ), French international rugby union player
- Laurent Koscielny (1985- ) footballer who plays for Arsenal in the Premier League
- Thomas Domingo (1985– ), French international rugby union player
See also
- Cantons of the Corrèze department
- Communes of the Corrèze department
- Arrondissements of the Corrèze department
External links
- (French) Prefecture website
- (French) General Council website
- lacorreze.com a lot of photos
Categories:
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