22 administrative regions in France and 4 in its overseas territories (Réunion, Martinique, Guiana, Guadeloupe) contain 95 départements. Each of these regions have distinctive physical and human characteristics. Since 1987, each regional Council has been required to set up a Comité Régional de Tourisme (CRT).
France's landscapes are highly varied between the North (langue d'oïl region) and South of the Loire (langue d'oc region). North of the Loire, they open out into the plains of the Nord rich in abbeys and military sites, the small valleys of Haute-Normandie around the Seine and its coastline of chalk cliffs (Etretat), the small fields of Basse-Normandie (Mont-Saint-Michel) and Brittany with its wild coastline (Pointe du Raz), the historic monuments of the Ile-de-France and Picardy, the gentleness of the Loire Valley and its royal châteaux, the immense forests of the Ardennes, Burgundy, Franche-Comté and Lorraine, the crystalline Vosges and sandstone Alsace.
South of the Loire, the langue d'oc region, you come to the Central region and predominantly rural Poitou-Charentes, the volcanic relief of Auvergne (the chain of the Puys), the forest and granite intimacy of Limousin, the gourmet Aquitaine (dune of Pilat), the Midi-Pyrénées region with its châteaux and valleys as far as the Pyrenees (Cirque de Gavarnie, Cirque de Navacelles), the furrow of the Rhône renowned for its ancient civilisation, and finally the Alps and pre-Alps descending to the Mediterranean (Mont-Blanc, Vallée des Merveilles, Gorges du Verdon). After the snowy peaks, it is palm trees and mimosas on the Grande Bleue and Corsica, isle of Beauty (cliffs of Bonifacio).
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