Allier (French pronunciation: [a.lje]; Occitan: Alèir) is a department in central France named after the river Allier.

Allier is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Auvergne and Bourbonnais.

In 1940, the government of Marshal Philippe Pétain chose the town of Vichy as its capital. Vichy also became the department's second sub-prefecture in 1940, since the department now found itself split by the demarcation line between the occupied and (relatively, at least initially) free zones of France.

The department belongs to the region Auvergne and is surrounded by the following French departments: Cher, Nièvre, Saône-et-Loire, Loire, Puy-de-Dôme, and Creuse.

The following rivers run through Allier:

Allier is the most productive agricultural area of the Auvergne. Vichy has long been known for its water, which is exported worldwide.

Montluçon, Vichy, and Moulins are the principal cities. The rest of the department consists of smaller towns, mostly along the rivers. In general, the department is sparsely populated. The population increased until the end of the 19th century because of the growth of industry in Montluçon and Moulins and development of the thermal resources at Vichy. At that time the department had over 420,000 inhabitants. After the losses of World War I, the population stagnated, with a small increase in the 1960s. Since then, it has decreased slightly from 386,533 in 1968 to 344,721 in 1999.

Guillaume Kigbafori Soro (born 8 May 1972) is an Ivorian politician who was the Prime Minister of Côte d'Ivoire from April 2007 to March 2012. Prior to his service as Prime Minister, Soro led the Patriotic Movement of Côte d'Ivoire and later the New Forces rebel group as its Secretary-General.

Since March 2012, Soro has been President of the National Assembly of Côte d'Ivoire.

A Roman Catholic from Diawala in the north of the country, Soro led the rebel Patriotic Movement of Côte d'Ivoire (MPCI) in a September 2002 rebellion against the government of President Laurent Gbagbo that triggered the Ivorian Civil War. In December 2002 Soro's MPCI combined with two other rebel groups – Ivorian Popular Movement of the Great West (MPIGO) and Movement for Justice and Peace (MJP) – to form the les Forces Nouvelles de Côte d'Ivoire (New Forces). He became Secretary-general of the group.

Following a peace agreement in January 2003, Soro joined the government as Minister of Communications in April 2003. The New Forces ministers began a boycott of the government in September 2003 and returned to the government in January 2004. After an opposition demonstration held in Abidjan was violently broken up in March 2004, Soro and other former rebel and opposition ministers began boycotting the government. In turn, Gbagbo dismissed Soro from his position, along with two other ministers, on 19 May 2004. Soro denounced this move, saying that it was effectively a coup by Gbagbo against the peace agreement. On 9 August 2004 Soro attended a cabinet meeting and was reinstated in his position. On 28 December 2005, Soro was appointed Minister of Reconstruction and Reintegration in the government of Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny; in this position he became the second ranking member of the government, after the Prime Minister. He did not, however, attend a cabinet meeting in this capacity until 15 March 2006.