Département

This is a key administrative unit in France. This comes up quite often indeed in that on French original patent documents in particular it is often the only location data given, for inventors located in France. Nations are usually all the data given for inventors located outside of France while filing with the French patent office.

• Seine - This is key to our data. Though it is no longer an official French département, in this administrative sense, it was during the period on which we are focused, and in particular it was the département which included Paris. Quite often French patents give us only Seine, France, while a Hungarian patent will give us Paris, for instance, and a British patent will most fastidiously give us a specific address.
• Hautes-Pyrénées

There were many others of course.

The région is a greater unit.