Editing Provinces of France (section)

== History and preceding divisions ==

=== Gallish ''civitates'' ===
{{Quote|text=It's worth noting that the old Gallic states retained their names, their boundaries and a kind of moral existence in people's memories and affections until very recently. Neither the Romans, nor the Germans, nor feudalism, nor monarchy destroyed these enduring units; they can still be found in the provinces and countries of present-day France.|author=Fustel de Coulanges|title=Histoire des institutions politiques de l'ancienne France}}
Gaul was occupied by fifty-four main peoples and more than a hundred individual peoples (300 according to Flavius Josephus), some with very different customs. Julius Caesar called each of these independent states ''[[civitas]]'' (city, without the word in this case referring to the idea of town or village), some of which were subdivided into [[Pagus|''pagi'']]. Many of the smaller Gallic peoples were ''clients'' of their neighbors, and therefore dependent on them, sometimes paying them tribute. These confederations, the best-known of which are those of the [[Arverni]], [[Aedui]] and [[Armorica#History|Armoricans]], formed a kind of province before Roman reorganization.

The Gallic cities, with their territory and the name given to their chief town, became [[Diocese|dioceses]] under the Lower Empire; their status as "mainmorte", having escaped the division of patrimonial domains, explains why they remained almost intact until the end of the Ancien Régime. These divisions were subsequently taken over and partly regrouped to form the generalités, then the départements, but replacing their former ethnic names (e.g. Poitou for the country of Pictons, Auvergne for the country of Arverni, Rouergue for the country of [[Ruteni]], Périgord for country of Pétrocores, etc.) with a physical geographic name (giving respectively the départements of [[Vienne (department)|Vienne]], [[Puy-de-Dôme]], [[Aveyron]], [[Dordogne]], etc.).

=== Roman provinces ===
The Latin etymology of the term provincia gives us an idea of its original meaning: ''pro vincere'', conquered in advance.{{Citation needed|date=October 2023}} Each of Gaul's Roman provinces had a precise legal definition, clearly defined boundaries and codified administrative structures. The number of provinces, their organization and boundaries varied widely over the course of five centuries, and each was headed by a [[proconsul]] or [[Promagistrate|propraetor]]. In addition to Provincia (Provence), which was already Roman, Caesar divided Gaul into three provinces: [[Gallia Aquitania|Aquitanica]], [[Gallia Celtica|Celtica]] and [[Gallia Belgica|Belgica]]. Over the course of four centuries of Roman control, the number of provinces increased from three to eleven, due to both the expansion of the empire and the reduction in size of the original provinces: [[Germania Superior|1st]] and [[Germania Inferior|2nd Germania]], 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th [[Gallia Lugdunensis|Lugdunensis]], 1st and 2nd [[Gallia Aquitania|Aquitanica]], 1st and 2nd [[Gallia Belgica|Belgica]], 1st and 2nd [[Gallia Narbonensis|Narbonensis]], [[Novempopulania|Novempopulanie]], [[Sequani|Sequanorum]], [[Viennensis]], [[Cottian Alps|Alpes Cottiarum]], [[Alpes Maritimae]], [[Alpes Graiae et Poeninae]]. These provinces were subdivided into cities (civitas or civitates in the plural), the number of which rose from 33 to 113.