Small agricultural regions of Saône and Loire

The division of French territory into “agricultural regions” was born in 1946 to meet the request of the Commissariat Général au Plan. The aim was to have appropriate zoning for the implementation of development measures designed to accelerate the development of agriculture. For INSEE, in order to study the evolution of agriculture, it was necessary to have a stable division of France into units as homogeneous as possible from the point of view of agriculture, moving away from administrative divisions with arbitrary limits. Largely inspired by geographical regions, agricultural and small agricultural regions have an intermediate size between the commune (area too small to present results) and the department (area too heterogeneous). The last update was in 1981. The Agricultural Region (RA) covers an entire number of municipalities forming a homogeneous agricultural area. The Petite Agricole Region (PRA) consists of the intersection of the department and the RA.