Centre-Val de Loire - Regions of France 31.1.1976

Centre-Val de Loire, is one of the 18 regions of France. It straddles the middle Loire Valley in the interior of the country. The administrative capital is Orléans, but the largest city is Tours.

While it does – just –  include the point which is the geometric "centre" of continental France, the region of France known as "Centre Val-de-Loire" does not generally coincide with the middle of the country. It could more aptly be described as being the centre section of northern France. It is an area stretching from a latitude slightly north of Paris, down to the north of the Limousin and Auvergne regions, and is bordered to the west by Normandy, the Pays de la Loire region and Poitou, and to the east by the Paris region (Ile de France) and Burgundy. Its regional capital is the city of Orléans.

Unlike many other regions, the Centre Val-de-Loire region is not a historic province; it is, as its name perhaps implies, the heart of historic France, the area between the Paris region and the Loire valley that was for many centuries the centre of the kingdom of France – at times when the territory which is today known as France was divided among the kingdoms or duchies of Normandy, Burgundy, Aquitaine, Anjou and others less important. In this respect, the regions of the Centre and the Ile de France are France.
The region is composed of six departments, the Eure et Loir* (28), the Loiret (45), the Loir  et Cher (41), the Cher (18), the Indre et Loire (37) and the Indre (36).

Thank you Merja.