Lozere: France's Emptiest Department
Lozere is the least populated department in metropolitan France. Barely 76,500 people live across an area of wild, elevated terrain in the southern Massif Central. Mende, the prefecture, has a population of only about 12,000. The Gorges du Tarn cut through limestone plateaux (the Causses) in the department's south, while the granite uplands of the Margeride and the Aubrac occupy the north and west.
Robert Louis Stevenson walked through Lozere with a donkey in 1878, and his route (the GR 70) is now a popular long-distance hiking trail. The Gevaudan beast, a mysterious creature that killed dozens of people in the eighteenth century, is the department's most famous legend. Wolves have been reintroduced to the area, and the Parc des Loups du Gevaudan is a popular attraction. The department is essentially roadless in parts, with vast empty spaces that are rare in Western Europe.
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Lozere is the least populated department in metropolitan France. Barely 76,500 people live across an area of wild, elevated terrain in the southern Massif Central. Mende, the prefecture, has a population of only about 12,000. The Gorges du Tarn cut through limestone plateaux (the Causses) in the department's south, while the granite uplands of the Margeride and the Aubrac occupy the north and west.
Robert Louis Stevenson walked through Lozere with a donkey in 1878, and his route (the GR 70) is now a popular long-distance hiking trail. The Gevaudan beast, a mysterious creature that killed dozens of people in the eighteenth century, is the department's most famous legend. Wolves have been reintroduced to the area, and the Parc des Loups du Gevaudan is a popular attraction. The department is essentially roadless in parts, with vast empty spaces that are rare in Western Europe.
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