Number of Communes in France in 2026
As of January 1, 2026, France has 34,875 communes, the country's basic municipalities, according to INSEE's Official Geographic Code (Code officiel géographique): 34,746 in mainland France and 129 in the overseas departments.
This number has gone down every year since 2015 because of "new communes" (communes nouvelles), created by merging neighboring communes: France used to have more than 36,000. Our ranking covers 34,858 communes (the 17 communes of Mayotte are not yet included). More than half of them have fewer than 500 inhabitants (18,042 communes, or 52%), and only 42 have more than 100,000 inhabitants.
Communes by Number of Inhabitants
| Population | Communes | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under 100 inhabitants | 3,283 | 9.4% |
| 100 to 499 | 14,759 | 42.3% |
| 500 to 999 | 6,634 | 19.0% |
| 1,000 to 4,999 | 7,905 | 22.7% |
| 5,000 to 19,999 | 1,784 | 5.1% |
| 20,000 to 49,999 | 357 | 1.0% |
| 50,000 to 99,999 | 94 | 0.3% |
| 100,000 inhabitants and over | 42 | 0.1% |
Number of Communes by Region
| Region | Communes | Departments | Population |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Est | 5,115 | 10 | 5,664,044 |
| Occitanie | 4,446 | 13 | 6,246,196 |
| Nouvelle-Aquitaine | 4,293 | 12 | 6,288,233 |
| Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes | 4,025 | 12 | 8,373,427 |
| Hauts-de-France | 3,782 | 5 | 6,081,819 |
| Bourgogne-Franche-Comté | 3,685 | 8 | 2,872,652 |
| Normandy | 2,644 | 5 | 3,415,447 |
| Centre-Val de Loire | 1,754 | 6 | 2,644,169 |
| Île-de-France | 1,266 | 8 | 12,571,781 |
| Pays de la Loire | 1,228 | 5 | 3,997,387 |
| Brittany | 1,202 | 4 | 3,537,071 |
| Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur | 946 | 6 | 5,293,055 |
| Corsica | 360 | 2 | 360,270 |
| Martinique | 34 | 1 | 364,348 |
| Guadeloupe | 32 | 1 | 388,493 |
| Réunion | 24 | 1 | 899,660 |
| French Guiana | 22 | 1 | 296,053 |
Number of Communes by Department
The department with the most communes is Pas-de-Calais (887), and the one with the fewest is Paris (1).
Official count: INSEE, Official Geographic Code (Code officiel géographique) as of January 1, 2026.
Other Rankings
Largest cities (population) Largest communes by area Most densely populated towns Smallest towns Departments Regions
Sources: INSEE, official population figures in force on January 1, 2026 (total population); areas: IGN / Observatoire des territoires.