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The region was named after the River Rhone and the Alps mountain
range, and its capital city of Lyon, is the second-largest metropolitan area in France
after Paris.
There are eight departments within the Rhone-Alpes region,
which are the Ardeche, Isere, Loire, Savoie, Haute-Savoie, Ain, Drome and the Rhone.
To the north are the French regions of Bourgogne (Burgundy)
and Franche-Comte. To the west there is the region
Auvergne. And to the south it borders Languedoc-Roussillon
and the Alpes-Cote d'Azur. The east of the
region contains the western part of the Alps and borders Switzerland and Italy.
The highest peak in this region is called Mont Blanc.
The Rhone-Alpes has a capital city in each of its departments and these are as follows:
Rhone Capital is Lyon
Ardeche Capital is Privas
Drome Capital is Valence
Ain Capital is Bourg-en-Bresse
Isere Capital is Grenoble
Savoie Capital is Chambery
Loire Capital is Saint Etienne
Haute Savoie Capital is Annecy
The central part of the region is taken up with the valley of the Rhone and the Saone
and the confluence of these two rivers is at Lyon.
The western part of the region contains the start of the Massif Central mountain range.
The region also contains major lakes such as Lake Geneva known in France as Lac Leman and
the Ardeche is the home of the deepest gorge in Europe.
Many inhabitants of the Rhone-Alpes spoke varieties of Occitan although it is in steep
decline in this region, but as with the rest of France, French is the only official
language of the region.
Although there have been people in Rhône-Alpes since pre-historic times, the earliest
recorded settlers of the region were the Celts and most of the area became part of Roman
territory during the invasion of Gaul led by Julius Caesar with Lyon itself becoming a
major Roman city.
The Rhone-Alpes is a very prosperous region and in the whole of France its economy is
second in size only to Ile-de-France. A lot
of this can be attributed to the diversity in different sectors such as high tech
industries, tourism, and adventure holidays
on offer. But in the past coal mining was a very important sector, particularly
around Saint Etienne, although, as you can no doubt appreciate, this has declined over the
years whilst other industry sectors have taken over.
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