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Rhône-Alpes (Region, France)

by Pierre Gay

Flag of the Regional Council

Administrative data
Flag of the Regional Council

See also:

Administrative data

Departments: Ain, Ardèche, Drôme, Isère, Loire, Rhône, Savoie, Haute-Savoie
Bordering Regions: Auvergne, Bourgogne, Franche-Comté, Languedoc-Roussillon, Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur
Bordering countries: Italy, Switzerland
Traditional provinces: Bourgogne, Dauphiné, Languedoc, Comtat Venaissin, Savoie

Area: 43,698 km²Population (1995): 5,569,200 inhabitants
Regional prefecture: Lyon

Flag of the Regional Council

The Regional Council of Rhône-Alpes adopted a flag on 2 January 1991. The flag is white with the regional logo: eight vertical lines which symbolize the eight departments of the region.

Jaume Ollé, 2 November 1996

The vertical lines represent the future and the ambitions, the horizontal lines represent competences and determination. The rainbow colors represent performance, modernism, youth and quality of life.

The blue line represents the Rhone river, It shows the coherence of a great European region. The graphism shows also the 'West to East' region's elevation from the plains to the mountains.

Tristan Blaudet, 14 September 2003

The main problem of the Region Rhône-Alpes is its lack of geographical and historical homogeneity. The name Rhône-Alpes, associating a river and a mountain, was probably the best default choice. The natural division of the Alps is not respected by the administrative borders, since the limit between the Northern and Southern Alps goes through the department of Drôme. This limit was also the border between Provence and Dauphiné. Since crossing the Rhône was extremely difficult in the past, Ardèche, located on the right bank, belonged to Languedoc and had few contacts with Dauphiné.

There is more economical homogeneity, although the departments of Ardèche, Drôme and Hautes-Alpes are underdeveloped compared with the other ones.

However, some identity developed with time and the neologism rhônalpin was coined, the same way the neologism francilien was coined for Ile-de-France.

Ivan Sache, 15 September 2003