The Changing Map

The geography of rural France is not static. Climate change brings new challenges - shifting growing zones, increased drought risk in the south, changing precipitation patterns everywhere. Some traditional activities become unviable while new opportunities emerge. Wine regions creep northward. New crops appear in fields that have grown the same products for generations.

Human geography changes too. The demographic hemorrhage that emptied many rural areas through the 20th century has slowed and, in some regions, reversed. New residents bring different relationships with the land. Traditional administrative boundaries, based on medieval parishes and revolutionary departments, increasingly conflict with the reality of economic zones and daily mobility patterns.