Pays de la Loire

Pays de la Loire (French pronunciation: [pe.i d(ə) la lwaʁ]) is one of the eighteen administrative regions of France, located on the country's Atlantic coast. It was created in the 1950s to serve as a zone of influence for its capital and most populated city, Nantes, one of a handful of French "balancing metropolises" (métropoles d'équilibre). In 2020, Pays de la Loire had a population of 3,832,120.

Pays de la Loire is in western France, bordered by Brittany on the northwest, Normandy on the north, Centre-Val de Loire on the east, Nouvelle-Aquitaine on the south, and the Bay of Biscay of the North Atlantic Ocean on the southwest.

Pays de la Loire comprises five departments: Loire-Atlantique, Maine-et-Loire, Mayenne, Sarthe, Vendée.

Pays de la Loire is made up of the following historical provinces:

Thus the name of the region, chosen by the French central government, was not based on history, but a postwar creation of purely geographical reference: Pays ("lands") de la Loire ("of the Loire").

The Loire Valley, which is a UNESCO listed World Heritage Site since 2000, is located both in the administrative regions of Pays de la Loire and Centre-Val de Loire. The majority of the châteaux of the Loire Valley such as Montsoreau, Angers, Saumur or Brézé in Pays de la Loire are located in the Maine-et-Loire department, Pays de la Loire has numerous prominent monuments, such as the castles of Laval, and the Nantes Château des Ducs de Bretagne, the Royal Fontevraud Abbey (the widest monastic ensemble in Europe), and the old city of Le Mans. It also has many natural parks such as the Brière and the Marsh of Poitou.

Evolution of the population listed by departments:

A steep increase in the population was seen particularly as people migrated from all over France to the Loire region due to the rise of Nantes to prominence.