French Departments and their numbers –  The map on this site shows the division of France into departments and gives the number of each department. In the administrative divisions of France, the department is one of the three levels of government below the national level (“territorial collectivities”), between the region and the commune. The departments were created in 1791 as a rational replacement of Ancien Régime provinces in view of strengthening national unity; almost all of them are therefore named after rivers, mountains or coasts rather than after historical or cultural territories, unlike regions, and some of them are commonly referred to by their two-digit postal code number