Cantons of France
The cantons of France (French pronunciation: [kɑ̃tɔ̃] ⓘ) are territorial subdivisions of the French Republic's departments and arrondissements.
| Canton | |
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Cantons of metropolitan France | |
| Category | Fourth-level administrative division |
| Location | Regions of France |
| Number | 2,054 (as of 2015) |
| Government | |
| This article is part of a series on the |
| Administrative divisions of France |
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| Administrative divisions |
| Intercommunality |
| Communes |
| Overseas France |
| Geocodes of France |
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Apart from their role as organizational units in relation to certain aspects of the administration of public services and justice, the chief purpose of the cantons today is to serve as constituencies for the election of members of the representative assemblies established in each of France's territorial departments (departmental councils, formerly general councils). For this reason, such elections were known in France as "cantonal elections", until 2015 when their name was changed to "departmental elections" to match the departmental councils' name.
As of 2015, there were 2,054 cantons in France.
Most of them group together a number of communes (the lowest administrative division of the French Republic), although larger communes may be included in more than one canton, since the cantons – in marked contrast to the communes, which have between more than two million inhabitants (Paris) and just one person (Rochefourchat) – are intended to be roughly equal in size of population.