Yvelines

Yvelines
Coat of Arms of Yvelines
Location
Administration
Department number:	78
Region:	Île-de-France
Prefecture:	Versailles
Subprefectures:	Mantes-la-Jolie Rambouillet Saint-Germain- en-Laye
Arrondissements:	4
Cantons:	39
Communes:	262
President of the General Council:	Pierre Bédier
Statistics
Population	Ranked 8th
-2006	1,395,804
Population density:	612/km2
Land area¹:	2,284 km2
¹ French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km2.

Yvelines is a French department in the region of Île-de-France.

History

Yvelines was created from the western part of the defunct department of Seine-et-Oise on 1 January 1968 in accordance with a law passed on 10 January 1964 and a décret d'application (a decree specifying how a law should be enforced) from 26 February 1965.

It gained the communes of Châteaufort and Toussus-le-Noble from the adjacent department of Essonne in 1969.

Geography

Yvelines is bordered by the departments of Val-d'Oise on the north, Hauts-de-Seine on the east, Essonne on the southeast, Eure-et-Loir on the southwest, and Eure on the west.

The eastern part of the department, as well as its northern part along the Seine, is part of the Paris metropolitan area, but the rest of the department is rural, much of it covered by the Rambouillet Forest.

Besides Versailles (the prefecture) and the subprefectures of Mantes-la-Jolie, Rambouillet, and Saint-Germain-en-Laye, important cities include Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, Poissy, Les Mureaux, Houilles, Plaisir, Sartrouville, Chatou, Le Chesnay, and the new agglomeration community of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.

Two regional national parks can be found in Yvelines: the parc de la Haute Vallée de Chevreuse and part of the parc du Vexin Français.

Yvelines is home to one of France's best known golf courses, La Tuilerie-Bignon, in the village of Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche.

See also Map of Yvelines.

Demographics

In French, a man from the Yvelines is called Yvelinois (plural Yvelinois); a woman is Yvelinoise (plural Yvelinoises).

Place of birth of residents

Tourism

Palaces and Châteaux

• Palace of Versailles
• Château of Breteuil
• Château of Dampierre
• Château of Maisons-Lafitte
• Château of Rambouillet
• Château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye
• Château of Thoiry
• Château of Vaux-sur-Seine
• Château of Mauvières
• Château du Pont
• Château Villette

Museums

• Museum of National Antiques (Saint-Germain-en-Laye)
• Museum of River and Canal Craft (Conflans-Sainte-Honorine)
• Horse-drawn Coach Museum (Versailles)
• Toy Museum (Poissy)
• Sheep Museum (Rambouillet)
• Cloth Museum of Jouy (Jouy-en-Josas)
• National Barn Museum of Port-Royal (Magny-les-Hameaux)
• International Museum of Naive Art
• Musee Lambinet (Versailles)

Artist's and Writer's Houses

• André Derain's house (Chambourcy)
• Elsa Triolet-Aragon's house (Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines)
• Émile Zola's house (Médan)
• Maurice Ravel's house/museum (Montfort-l'Amaury)
• Ivan Turgenev House (Bougival)
• Alexandre Dumas, père's Château de Monte-Cristo (Port-Marly)
• Jean-Claude Richard's family estate (Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche)

Parks and Gardens

• Chèvreloup Arboretum (Rocquencourt)
• Marly Estate (Marly-le-Roi)
• Vaux sur Seine Castle Garden (Vaux sur Seine)
• The King's Vegetable Garden (Versailles)

Politics of Yvelines

Senators from Yvelines

• Nicolas About (Centrist Union)
• Jacques Bellanger (Socialist Party)
• Dominique Braye (UMP)
• Alain Gournac (UMP)
• Gérard Larcher (UMP)

See also

• Cantons of the Yvelines department
• Communes of the Yvelines department
• Arrondissements of the Yvelines department

External links

• (French) Prefecture of Yvelines
• (French) General council of Yvelines
• (French) History of Famous People and Yvelines

Coordinates: 48°50′N 1°55′E / 48.833°N 1.917°E / 48.833; 1.917