Sisällysluettelo:
History of France: Henry IV, Protestant King, part 1 (Saattaa 2024)
Picardie, Ranskan Picardie, historiallinen alue ja entinen Ranskan alue. Alueena se kattoi Oisen, Sommen ja Aisnen pohjoiset departementit. Vuonna 2016 Picardy liitettiin Nord – Pas-de-Calais -alueeseen muodostamaan Hauts-de-Francen uusi hallintoyksikkö.
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Maantiede
Alue kuuluu Pariisin altaan alueelle ja on pääosin tasainen, ja sen korkeus on alle 300 metriä. Laonin, Soissonsin ja Valoisin kalkkipitoiset tasangot nousevat itään. Somme-joki virtaa idästä luoteeseen suuren osan alueesta. Somme-joen suisto ja Sommen lahti vievät suuren osan matalasta rannikosta. Aisne-joki virtaa idästä länteen liittymään Oise-jokeen, joka virtaa lounaaseen alueen poikki. Merellinen ilmasto vallitsee.
Väestö väheni lähes viidenneksellä vuosien 1861 ja 1946 välillä, samoin kuin suurimman osan Ranskan maaseudun väestöstä tänä aikana. Myöhemmin se on kasvanut nopeudella, joka ylittää kansallisen keskiarvon. Väestörakenteen elpyminen on suosinut Oisen departementtia Aisnen ja Sommen yli. Oise on hyötynyt läheisyydestään Pariisiin, mikä on johtanut väestön ja kaupan tulvaan. Suuri osa väestöstä asuu alle 15 000 asukkaan kaupungeissa, ja maaseutu on suhteellisen tiheästi asuttu.
Agriculture is highly mechanized and productive. The average farm is large for France, approaching 200 acres (80 hectares). Crops include sugar beets, wheat, barley, and potatoes. Animal husbandry is of less importance. Traditional industries, such as weaving at Saint-Quentin and the production of mirrors at Saint-Gobain, which dates from the 17th century, are in decline.
Major industries, located predominately at Amiens and along the Oise valley, include metalworking and the manufacturing of automotive parts, chemicals, plastics, and rubber. Food-processing industries, which have diversified into frozen foods and ready-to-eat meals, are also widely present, reflecting the importance of the region’s agricultural activities.
The region is not a major tourist destination, but it has a number of noteworthy historical sites, including two of the finest Romanesque churches in northern France, located at Saint-Leu-d’Esserent and Morienval; the medieval churches of Laon, Braine, and Urcel; the Gothic church at Saint-Quentin; and Amiens Cathedral. The resort town of Chantilly, with its château and the annual horse races of the French Jockey Club, draws many visitors each year. The region also has a number of small resorts along the coast.
History
Because Picardy was never unified in the feudal period, its boundaries are disputable. Linguistically, Picardy extended beyond its geographic boundaries to Artois, Cambrésis, Tournésis, and parts of Flanders and Hainaut. Ecclesiastically, it embraced not only the medieval dioceses of Amiens, Noyon, and Laon but also the northern parts of those of Beauvais and of Soissons. The province of Picardy from the 16th century to the end of the ancien régime in 1789 comprised the Somme River basin from Saint-Quentin to the English Channel, the basins of the Serre and of the upper Oise, and Montreuil on the Canche beyond the Authie.
Occupied by the Salian Franks in the 5th century, Picardy was divided in the feudal period and encompassed six countships: Boulogne, Montreuil, Ponthieu, Amiénois, Vermandois, and Laonnois. King Philip II Augustus gradually united Amiénois and Vermandois to his domain (from 1185), but Ponthieu was held by the English as a fief almost continuously from 1279 to 1360 and then as an outright possession until 1369. The dukes of Burgundy acquired Ponthieu, the Somme towns, and Montdidier under the Treaty of Arras in 1435. Reconquered for France by Louis XI in 1477, Picardy was thereafter a frontier area invaded frequently from the Habsburg Netherlands until the French acquisition of Artois and southern Hainaut in 1659.
Some of the bloodiest fighting in World War I occurred in Picardy, reflected in the melancholy English popular song “Roses of Picardy” (1916) and also in the large number of cemeteries that mark former battlefields in the Somme valley. Picardy was also the scene of bitter fighting in World War II—in May 1940 and August and September 1944.
In 2016 the région of Picardy was merged with the neighbouring région of Nord–Pas-de-Calais as part of a plan to increase bureaucratic efficiency.
