Centre-Val de Loire, Centre-Loire Valley or Centre Region as it was known until 2015, is one of the eighteen administrative regions of France. It straddles the middle Loire Valley in the interior of the country, with a population of 2,572,853 as of 2018. Its prefecture is Orléans, and its largest city is Tours.
Like many contemporary regions of France, the region of Centre-Val de Loire was created from parts of historical provinces: Touraine, Orléanais and Berry. First, the name Centre was chosen by the government purely on the basis of geography, in reference to its location in northwest-central France.
Centre-Val-de-Loire borders the most of all eighteen regions in France. The bordering regions are Normandy on the northwest, Île-de-France on the northeast, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté on the east, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes on the southeast, Nouvelle-Aquitaine on the southwest and Pays de la Loire on the west.
Centre-Val de Loire comprises six departments: Cher, Eure-et-Loir, Indre, Indre-et-Loire, Loir-et-Cher and Loiret.