INSEE Code - Geographical Codes

Geographical Codes

INSEE also gives numerical indexing codes (French: les Codes INSEE) to various administrative entities in France:

• INSEE codes (known as COG, for Code officiel géographique) are given to various administrative units, notably the French communes (they do not coincide with postcodes — they are 36 778 communes in France and many are homonyms). This code has got 5 digits :
  • 2 digits (département) and 3 digits (commune) for the 96 départements of Metropolitan France
  • 3 digits (département or collectivity) and 2 digits (commune) for the Overseas departments and collectivities.

The departmental codes are well known since they were used as the last two digits of vehicle registration plates (75 is Paris, 13 Marseille, 31 Toulouse, etc. —). However, this license plate numbering system became optional in 2009 so the last two digits no longer necessarily indicate which department the car is registered to.

The commune codes were assigned initially by numbering the alphabetically ordered list of communes names within each department or overseas collectivity. Exceptions have occurred over time, because some commnues were renamed, or because some communes were split, and new communes have been added to the end of the list.

The departmental codes are also best known as part of the French postal codes; however these postal codes do not include the INSEE commune numbers, but were designed by geographical series starting by the main city of the department, and then split geographically around them, with additional series given for special distribution; some areas of the largest and most populated communes can also be assigned distinct series. So effectively, the postal codes do not indicate precisely the communes but the location of the post office in charge for the distribution, and many rural communes share the same postal code number as the commune where the post office is located.

There are also 5 digits INSEE codes for foreign countries and territories.