French administrative area consisted the departments of Alp-of-High-Provence (04), Hautes-Alpes (05), the Alpes-Maritimes (06), the Rhone delta (13), the VAr (83) and Vaucluse (84). Surface: 31' 435 km2 (either 5.8 % of the national territory). Population: 4 ' 506' 151 inhabitants (1999) (either approximately 7.5 % of the national population, 3rd the most populated French area).
Capital: Marseilles (also chief town of the Rhone delta); chief towns of departments: Avignon (Vaucluse), Worthy-the-Baths (Alp-of-High-Provence), Gap (Hautes-Alpes), Nice (the Alpes-Maritimes) and Toulon (VAr).
The Area Provence-Alp-Coast of Azure, whose name goes back to 1976, is an administrative entity created by a law of 1956. Corsica was detached from it in 1970. Not corresponding to a natural unit, it integrates various structural mediums. Although the Mediterranean influences are never absent, it offers a climatic diversity. The administrative entity is not identified in historical Provence: its septentrional limit does not follow the frontier layout separating Provence and Dauphiné formerly. It includes Comtat Venaissin (1790), old pontifical possession, the county of Nice (1860) and, since the last world war, the small frontier territories of Tends and Briançon. The principality of Monaco, coastal enclave of 195 km2, is a Sovereign state.