Picardie

:This article is about the modern French r?gion of Picardie. For the historical French province and cultural area of Picardy, see Picardy.

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Picardie (English: Picardy) is one of the 26 r?gions of France. It is located in the northern part of France.

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The modern r?gion of Picardie is larger than the historical province of Picardy. The south of the Aisne d?partement and most of the Oise d?partement were historically part of the province of ?le-de-France, while the Somme d?partement and the north of the Aisne d?partement were the province of Picardy proper.

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As the historical Picardy was deemed too small to become a r?gion, the French government decided to join it with the north of ?le-de-France (specifically, the pays of Beauvaisis, Valois, Noyonnais, Laonnois, Soissonnais, Omois, to quote only the most prominent). The name of the historical province of Picardy was given to this new r?gion.

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Thus, the Picardie r?gion is somewhat an artificial r?gion, with the south of the Oise d?partement lying inside the metropolitan area of Paris. People in the south of Oise commute to ?le-de-France for work, and hardly feel Picard ("Picardy inhabitant").

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Although Picardie is somewhat a stagnating r?gion, with the industrial area of Saint-Quentin in the north of Picardie had hit by economic crisis, the south of the r?gion, at the border with ?le-de-France, is booming due to the increasing inflow of Parisians relocating to the distant and greener suburbs of the Oise d?partement.

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Between the 1990 and 1999 French censuses, the population of Oise increased at the brisk pace of 0.61% per year (almost twice faster than France as a whole), while the Aisne d?partement lost inhabitants, and the Somme barely grew, at a laggard 0.16% per year. Today, 41.3% of the population of Picardie live inside the Oise d?partement, which historically was not part of Picardy.

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Geographically, the artificial character of the r?gion is also apparent. Although Picardy proper is a vast flat plain of open fields, famed for the gruesome Battle of the Somme, the south of Picardie (historically part of ?le-de-France) is a very scenic hilly area with large forests.

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English: English in common usage may refer to:...

France: The French Republic or France (: R?publique fran?aise or France) is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in Western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents....

Province: This article is about political regions. See geologic province for geological meanings....