Although it has the smallest street in the world, Gassin is not, and never has been, the largest commune in France.

The origin of this misinformation is not known, but it is easily verifiable… Especially as you don’t have to go far to find communes with a larger surface area.

The commune of Gassin has undergone a number of changes over the centuries. In the ^19th century, a lai de mer was attached to Cogolin, giving the village access to the Mediterranean. In 1929, the hamlet of Cavalaire to the south-west was detached from the commune, followed by La Croix in 1934. Gassin lost 16.7 and 22.3 km² respectively.

Firstly, in the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, Sainte-Maxime covers more than 80 km² and La Garde-Freinet more than 76 km². Even before the detachment of the hamlets of Cavalaire (1929) and La Croix (1934), Gassin totalled 63.76 km².

Name	Area before 1950 (km²)	Current area (km²)
Sainte-Maxime	81,61	81,61
La Garde-Freinet	76,64	76,64
Gassin	63,76	24,74
Cavalaire-sur-Mer		16,74
La Croix-Valmer		22,28
La Môle	52,11	45,28
Rayol-Canadel-sur-Mer		6,83
Grimaud	44,58	44,58
Le Plan-de-la-Tour	36,8	36,8
Ramatuelle	35,57	35,57
Cogolin	27,93	27,93
Saint-Tropez	11,18	11,18

The largest French commune is located in French Guiana, Maripasoula, with an area of 18,360 km². The commune of Yaté in New Caledonia covers an area of 1,338 km².

Closer to home, in France, it’s the Provencal commune ofArles holds the record with 758.93 km², almost twice the surface area of the Gulf of Saint-Tropez and its twelve communes.
Still in the Var, many communes are very spread out, and more than Gassin has its maximum: Signes (133 km²), Hyères (132 km²), Aiguines (114 km²), Collobrières (113 km²), Roquebrune-sur-Argens (106 km²), Fréjus (102 km²), Bormes-les-Mimosas and Rians (97 km²) and Saint-Raphaël (90 km²).