{"id":7103,"date":"2023-07-30T18:22:32","date_gmt":"2023-07-30T16:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gassin.eu\/is-or-was-gassin-the-largest-commune-in-france\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T14:31:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T12:31:33","slug":"is-or-was-gassin-the-largest-commune-in-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gassin.eu\/en\/is-or-was-gassin-the-largest-commune-in-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Is or was Gassin the largest commune in France?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Although it has the smallest street in the world, Gassin is not, and never has been, the largest commune in France. <\/p>\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n

The commune of Gassin has undergone a number of changes over the centuries. In the 19th<\/sup> 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 km\u00b2 respectively. <\/p>\n\n

\"\"
The evolution of Gassin’s territory from the 18th century, when it was at its most extensive, to the present day, following the cession of the lai de mer to Cogolin and the detachment of two sectors that became communes: Cavalaire and La Croix.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

Firstly, in the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, Sainte-Maxime covers more than 80 km\u00b2 and La Garde-Freinet more than 76 km\u00b2. Even before the detachment of the hamlets of Cavalaire (1929) and La Croix (1934), Gassin totalled 63.76 km\u00b2. <\/p>\n\n

Name<\/td>Area before 1950 (km\u00b2)<\/td>Current area (km\u00b2)<\/td><\/tr>
Sainte-Maxime<\/td>81,61<\/td>81,61<\/td><\/tr>
La Garde-Freinet<\/td>76,64<\/td>76,64<\/td><\/tr>
Gassin<\/strong><\/td>63,76<\/strong><\/td>24,74<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Cavalaire-sur-Mer<\/td>16,74<\/td><\/tr>
La Croix-Valmer<\/td>22,28<\/td><\/tr>
La M\u00f4le<\/td>52,11<\/td>45,28<\/td><\/tr>
Rayol-Canadel-sur-Mer<\/td>6,83<\/td><\/tr>
Grimaud<\/td>44,58<\/td>44,58<\/td><\/tr>
Le Plan-de-la-Tour<\/td>36,8<\/td>36,8<\/td><\/tr>
Ramatuelle<\/td>35,57<\/td>35,57<\/td><\/tr>
Cogolin<\/td>27,93<\/td>27,93<\/td><\/tr>
Saint-Tropez<\/td>11,18<\/td>11,18<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n

The largest French commune is located in French Guiana, Maripasoula<\/a>, <\/strong>with an area of 18,360 km\u00b2. The commune of Yat\u00e9<\/a> <\/strong>in New Caledonia covers an area of 1,338 km\u00b2. <\/p>\n\n

Closer to home, in France, it’s the Provencal commune ofArles<\/a><\/strong> holds the record with 758.93 km\u00b2, 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<\/strong><\/a> (133 km\u00b2), Hy\u00e8res<\/strong><\/a> (132 km\u00b2), Aiguines<\/strong><\/a> (114 km\u00b2), Collobri\u00e8res<\/strong><\/a> (113 km\u00b2), Roquebrune-sur-Argens<\/strong><\/a> (106 km\u00b2), Fr\u00e9jus<\/strong><\/a> (102 km\u00b2), Bormes-les-Mimosas<\/strong><\/a> and Rians<\/a><\/strong> (97 km\u00b2) and Saint-Rapha\u00ebl<\/strong><\/a> (90 km\u00b2).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":7104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-histoire-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gassin.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gassin.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gassin.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gassin.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gassin.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gassin.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7109,"href":"https:\/\/gassin.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7103\/revisions\/7109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gassin.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gassin.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gassin.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gassin.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}