Indre

Indre (French pronunciation: ​[ɛ̃dʁ]) is a department in the centre of France named after the river Indre. The inhabitants of the department are called Indriens. Indre is part of the current region of Centre-Val de Loire and is surrounded by the departments of Indre-et-Loire, Loir-et-Cher, Cher, Creuse, Vienne, and Haute-Vienne. The préfecture (capital) is Châteauroux and there are five districts with subpréfectures at Le Blanc, La Châtre, Issoudun, Argenton-sur-Creuse and Châtillon-sur-Indre.

History

Indre is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790, by order of the National Constituent Assembly. The new departments were to be uniformly administered and approximately equal in size and population to one another. The department was created from part of the former province of Berry.

Before the Roman conquest, the Celtic Bituriges tribe occupied an area that included Indre, Cher, and part of Limousin. Their capital was Avaricum (Bourges), and another important settlement was at Argenton-sur-Creuse. The area then became part of Roman Gaul after its conquest by Julius Caesar around 58 BC, and enjoyed a period of stability. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, the Frankish tribes living in Gaul were united under the Merovingians, and succeeded in conquering most of the country in the sixth century AD. From this time, the Franks controlled most of Gaul and the Carolingian Empire was the last stage of their rule. The Carolingian dynasty reached its peak with the crowning of Charlemagne and after his death in 814, it began to fragment. The Carolingian territories were divided into three sections in 843 at the Treaty of Verdun, and the area that is now the department of Indre, became part of West Francia. In 869, the king of Middle Francia died without leaving a legitimate heir, and eventually part of that kingdom was added to West Francia to effectively form the medieval Kingdom of France.

France

France (French: [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a sovereign state comprising territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European part of France, called metropolitan France, extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. France spans 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and has a total population of 66.6 million. It is a unitary semi-presidential republic with the capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. The Constitution of France establishes the state as secular and democratic, with its sovereignty derived from the people.

During the Iron Age, what is now Metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The Gauls were conquered in 51 BC by the Roman Empire, which held Gaul until 486. The Gallo-Romans faced raids and migration from the Germanic Franks, who dominated the region for hundreds of years, eventually creating the medieval Kingdom of France. France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years' War (1337 to 1453) strengthening French state-building and paving the way for a future centralized absolute monarchy. During the Renaissance, France experienced a vast cultural development and established the beginning of a global colonial empire. The 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots).