Auvergne is one of
the 26 administrative regions of France.
The current administrative region of
Auvergne is larger than the historical province of Auvergne,
and includes provinces and areas that historically were not
part of Auvergne. The Auvergne region is composed of the
following old provinces:
Auvergne: departments of Puy-de-Dôme,
Cantal, north-west of Haute-Loire, and extreme south of
Allier. The province of Auvergne is entirely contained inside
the Auvergne region.
Bourbonnais: department of Allier. A
small part of Bourbonnais is also contained inside the Centre
region (south of the department of Cher).
Velay: center and southeast of
department of Haute-Loire. Velay is entirely contained inside
the Auvergne region.
a small part of Gévaudan: extreme
southwest of Haute-Loire. Gévaudan is essentially inside the
Languedoc-Roussillon region.
a small part of Vivarais: extreme
southeast of Haute-Loire. Vivarais is essentially inside the
Rhône-Alpes region.
a small part of Forez: extreme northeast
of Haute-Loire. Forez is essentially inside the Rhône-Alpes
region.
Velay, Gévaudan, and Vivarais are often
considered to be sub-provinces of the old Languedoc province.
Forez is also often considered to be a sub-province of
Lyonnais province. Therefore, the modern region of Auvergne is
composed of the provinces of Auvergne, major part of
Bourbonnais, and parts of Languedoc and Lyonnais.
The 2002 award-winning film, To Be and
to Have (Être et avoir), documents one year in the life of a
one-teacher school in rural Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson,
Puy-de-Dôme, Auvergne.
The region contains many volcanoes,
although the last confirmed eruption was around 6,000 years
ago. They began forming some 70,000 years ago, and most have
eroded away leaving plugs of unerupted hardened magma that
form rounded hilltops known as puys.