| Puy-de-Dôme | |
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| Coat of Arms of Puy-de-Dôme | |
| Location | |
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| Administration | |
| Department number: | 63 |
| Region: | Auvergne |
| Prefecture: | Clermont-Ferrand |
| Subprefectures: | Ambert Issoire Riom Thiers |
| Arrondissements: | 5 |
| Cantons: | 61 |
| Communes: | 470 |
| President of the General Council: | Jean-Yves Gouttebel |
| Statistics | |
| Population | Ranked 36th |
| -2007 | 626,639 |
| Population density: | 79/km2 |
| Land area¹: | 7970 km2 |
| ¹ French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km2. | |
Puy-de-Dôme (lo Puèi de Doma / lo Puèi Domat in the Auvergnat dialect of the Occitan language) is a department in the center of France named after the famous dormant volcano, the Puy-de-Dôme.
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Puy-de-Dôme is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from the former province of Auvergne. Originally, the department was to be called Mont d'Or ("golden mountain"), but this was judged not to be a very egalitarian name.
Puy-de-Dôme is part of the current region of Auvergne and is surrounded by the departments of Loire, Haute-Loire, Cantal, Corrèze, Allier, and Creuse.
The department is in the Massif Central and boasts more than 80 volcanic craters. It is three hours from Paris and an hour from Lyon by highways A71 and A72. The A75 links it to the Mediterranean Sea.
Its main cities are Clermont-Ferrand, Thiers, Riom, Issoire, Ambert, and Cournon-d'Auvergne.
Coordinates: 45°42′N 03°13′E / 45.7°N 3.217°E
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