Nord (French depairtment)

Nord
Nord
	Depairtment
	Prefectur biggin o the Nord depairtment, in Lille
	Coat airms
	Location o Nord in Fraunce
	Coordinates: 50°23′N 03°19′E / 50.383°N 3.317°E
Kintra	Fraunce
Region	Nord-Pas-de-Calais
Prefectur	Lille
Subprefecturs	Avesnes-; sur-Helpe; Cambrai; Douai; Dunkirk; Valenciennes
Govrenment
• Preses o the General Cooncil	Patrick Kanner
Area
• Total	5742.74 km2 (2,217.28 sq mi)
Population (1 Jan 2010 est.)
• Total	2,617,939
• Rank	1st
• Density	460/km2 (1,200/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
Depairtment nummer	59
Arrondissements	6
Cantons	79
Communes	652
	^1 French Land Register data, which exclude estuars, an lochs, ponds, an glaciers lairger than 1 km2

Nord (French pronunciation: [nɔʁ]; Wast Flemish an Dutch: Noorderdepartement, Scots: Northren Depairtment) is a depairtment in the far north o Fraunce. It wis creatit frae the wastren halves o the historical coonties o Flanders an Hainaut (the eastren halves bein in Belgium), an the Bishopric o Cambrai. The modren coat o airms wis inheritit frae the Coonty o Flanders. Nord is the anerlie French département in which a Dutch dialect (French Flemish) is spoken alang wi French as a native leid. It is the kintra's maist muckle depairtment.

History eedit

Nord wis ane o the oreeginal 83 depairtments that wur creatit durin the French Revolution on 4 Mairch 1790. It wis made up o three regions: the Coonties o Flanders an Hainaut, an the Bishopric o Cambrai, which wur cedit tae Fraunce in successive treaties (1659, 1668, an 1678).

Extent o Dutch spoken in the arrondissement o Dunkirk, 1874 an 1972

Durin the 4t an 5t centuries, the Roman practice o cooptin Germanic tribes tae provide military an defence services alang the route frae Boulogne tae Cologne creatit a Germanic-Romance linguistic mairch in the region that persistit till the 8t century. Saxon colonization intae the region frae the 5t tae the 8t centuries likely extendit the linguistic mairch somewha sooth sae that bi the 9t century maist indwallers north o Lille spoke a dialect o Middle Dutch, while the indwallers tae the sooth spoke a variety o Romance dialects. This linguistic mairch is still evident the day in the place names o the region. Efter the 9t century, the linguistic mairch began tae shift north an east, a process acceleratit bi modren govrenment policies that recognise French as the kintra's offeecial leid. Thare are currently 20,000 speakers o a subset o the Dutch dialect Wast Flemish in the arrondissement o Dunkirk an this pairticular subset is in danger o extinction athin decades.^[1]

Geography eedit

Nord is pairt o the current Nord-Pas-de-Calais region an is surroondit bi the French depairtments o Pas-de-Calais an Aisne, as well as bi Belgium an the North Sea.

Situatit in the north o the kintra alang the wastren hauf o the Belgian frontier, the depairtment is unuisually lang an narrae. Its principal ceety is Lille, which wi nearbi Roubaix, Tourcoing an Villeneuve d'Ascq constitutes the centre o a cluster o industrial an umwhile minin touns totalling slichtly ower a million indwallers. Ither important ceeties are Valenciennes, Douai, an Dunkirk. The principal rivers are the follaein:

Economy eedit

At the forefront o Fraunce's 19t century industrialisation, the aurie suffered severely durin Warld War I an nou faces the economic, social an environmental problems associatit wi the decline o coal minin wi its neighbours follaein the earlier decline o the Lille-Roubaix textile industry.

Till recently, the depairtment wis dominatit economically bi coal minin, which extendit throu the hert o the depairtment frae neighbourin Artois intae central Belgium.