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Yonne (, in Burgundian: Ghienne) is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in France. It is named after the river Yonne, which flows through it, in the country's north-central part. One of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté's eight constituent departments, it is located in its northwestern part, bordering Île-de-France. It was created in 1790 during the French Revolution. Its prefecture is Auxerre, with subprefectures in Avallon and Sens. Its INSEE and postcode number is 89.
Yonne is Bourgogne-Franche-Comté's fourth-most populous department, with a population of 335,707 (2019). Populations légales 2019: 89 Yonne, INSEE Its largest city is its prefecture Auxerre, with a population of about 35,000 within city limits and 68,000 in the urban area.
The Celts in the area were named "Icauna", after the River Yonne which they thought sacred. The region was later occupied by Gauls. In that period, the area came under the control of the Roman Empire, whose chief town was Sens, which they called Agendicum. It was the capital of their province of Gallia Lugdunensis, one of four provinces into which France was divided. The present main roads from Lyon to Boulogne, and from Sens to Alise-Sainte-Reine date from this period. About this time, Auxerre, Tonnerre (Tornodurum) and Avallon were growing in size. In the fourth century, Sens became a walled city. The first bishops were appointed in Sens and Langres, and they influenced the region profoundly because of their power.
In 1771, the north-westerly part of the present department belonged to Prince Francis Xavier of Saxony, the uncle of King Louis XVI. The current Yonne department was organized and defined during the French Revolution, on March 4, 1790, as a result of the passing of an Act on December 22, 1789. It was carved out of parts of the provinces of Burgundy, Champagne and Orléans, and to a lesser extent from parts of the Nivernais and Île-de-France.
The geology of the department is complex with concentric rings of granite, Jurassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks, and layers of sedimentary rocks. The terrain is mostly a low-lying plateau used for agriculture. The southwestern part is the Puisaye, which has a higher elevation and is more wooded. To the centre and east, the land inclines to the northwest where the higher land of the Tonnerrois region lies. To the east the rock is mostly limestone. The Auxerrois region is renowned for the grapes grown here, which are used in the production of Chablis wine. To the south lies the mountainous massif of Morvan, the highest parts of which are in the neighbouring department of Nièvre. The department has some forested areas but is mainly used for pasture or cultivated for wheat.
The viticulture industry was severely affected by the advent of powdery mildew and the arrival of Phylloxera in the nineteenth century; at the same time, the development of the railway network allowed cheaper wines from other regions to undercut Chablis wine in the Paris market. The once-thriving industry never recovered.J. Robinson (ed) "The Oxford Companion to Wine", Third Edition, pg 148–149, Oxford University Press, 2006 By 1945, only 4000 hectares of grapevines remained, and only 471 hectares of grapes were grown for Chablis.
More recently, the population trend has been reversed. During the period 1999 to 2007, it rose by 8000 to a total of 341,418. However, with a population of 46 inhabitants per square kilometre, the density in Yonne is still less than half that for the whole of France, which was 100.5 for the same year.
==Tourism==
Principal towns
The most populous commune is Auxerre, the prefecture. As of 2019, there are 6 communes with more than 5,000 inhabitants:
Auxerre 34,451 Sens 26,688 Joigny 9,557 Migennes 7,258 Avallon 6,462 Villeneuve-sur-Yonne 5,165
Demographics
Population development since 1801:
Economy
Over fifty percent of the inhabitants of the department are engaged in agricultural activities. Yonne is one of the poorest and most rural departments in France. During the hundred years leading up to 1962, its population declined by around 100,000, while all of the surrounding departments experienced population growth. Yonne had been bypassed by the development of the railways. As French industry flourished elsewhere in the late nineteenth century, the young people left Yonne seeking better opportunities, and the department stagnated.
Politics
The president of the Departmental Council is Patrick Gendraud, elected in 2017. In 2015, the General Council of the department was allotted a budget of 410 million euros.
Current National Assembly Representatives
The department elects three members of parliament to the National Assembly. In the 2012–17 parliamentary term, two represented the right-wing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and one the Socialist Party (France) (PS).
Yonne's 1st constituency Daniel Grenon National Rally Yonne's 2nd constituency André Villiers Horizons Yonne's 3rd constituency Julien Odoul National Rally
See also
External links
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