Note (Back) — Chapter XVIII

Of communes there are, in all, under the territorial land survey of 1909, 36,229. In both size and population they vary enormously. Some comprise but diminutive hamlets of two or three score people; others comprise cities like Bordeaux, Lyons, and Marseilles, each with a population in excess of a quarter of a million. At the last census 27,000 communes had a population of less than one thousand; 17,000, of less than five hundred; 9,000, of less than three hundred; 137, of less than fifty. On the other hand, 250 contained each a population of more than ten thousand, and fourteen of more than one hundred thousand. In area they vary all the way from a few acres to the 254,540 acres of the commune of Arles.[517]