Deux-Sèvres (Department, France)

Last modified: 2013-12-29 by ivan sache
Keywords: deux-sevres | poitou-charentes | letter: s (blue) |
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• Administrative data
• Former flag of the General Council
• Municipal flags
  • Niort
  • Bressuire
  • Parthenay
  • Saint-Martin-de-Sanzay
  • Saint-Pardoux-en-Gâtine
    • Château-Bourdin

See also:

• France
  • France: Metropolitan departments
• Clickable map of France (departments)

Administrative data

Code: 79
Region: Poitou-Charentes
Traditional provinces: Poitou, Angoumois, Saintonge
Bordering departments: Charente, Charente-Maritime, Maine-et-Loire, Vendée, Vienne

Area: 5,999 km²
Population (2006): 359,711 inhabitants

Préfecture: Niort
Sous-préfectures: Bressuire, Parthenay
Subdivisions: 3 arrondissements, 33 cantons, 305 communes.

The department is named after the two (deux) rivers Sèvre Nantaise (126 km), tributary of the Loire, and Sèvre Niortaise (150 km), tributary of the Atlantic Ocean.
On 3 August 1973, the municipality of Puy-Saint-Bonnet was incorporated to the municipality of Cholet and therefore transferred from the department of Deux-Sèvres to the department of Maine-et-Loire.

Ivan Sache, 14 November 2009

Former flag of the General Council

Former flag of the General Council - Image by Ivan Sache, 25 October 2009

The former flag of the General Council of Deux-Sèvres, as reported by Thierry Gilabert, is white with the logo of the General Council.
The former logo of the General Council of Deux-Sèvres is a white rectangle framed in green and charged with two "S" in two different shades of blue. "CONSEIL GÉNÉRAL / DEUX-SÈVRES" is written below in blue letters.
The double-shaded "S" represent the two rivers for which the department is named, Sèvre Nantaise and Sèvre Niortaise.

The inhabitants of the department were recently asked to select the new logo among three proposals.
The website dedicated to the new logo presents the elected design, voted for by 37.8% of the voters.
The logo is white with the grey writing "DEUX-SÈVRES / UN BRIN D'AVANCE", surmounted by a bunch of grass blades, all oblique and in different shades of black or green. The "I" of "BRIN" is also oblique and green.
"Modern and dynamic", the new logo conveys three meanings:
- the grass blades swept by the wind represents the freshness of a living vegetation;
- the interlaced blades recall the entangled canals of the "Green Venice", that is Marais Poitevin, and, also communication axes, symbolizing the location of the department on the Atlantic Arc*;
- the blades form an arrow with its source on the word "Deux" and pointing to various directions, symbolizing the central location of the department, close to Bordeaux, Nantes, La Rochelle and even Paris.
The motto "Un brin d'avance" - A blade ahead - recalls that the rural character of the department is an advantage because of its preserved environment.

*Quoting the Atlantic Arc Commission website:

The Atlantic Arc Commission is one of the six Geographical Commissions in the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe, and its action, although specific to the requirements of its member Regions, is part of a more general framework.
Founded in 1989 in Faro, Algarve, the Atlantic Arc Commission covers 27 Regions from Andalusia to Scotland, all of whom have cooperated since that date on a wide range of issues.