Nord (French department)

Nord
Département
Prefecture building of the Nord department, in Lille
Flag Coat of arms
Location of Nord in France
Coordinates: 50°23′N 03°19′E / 50.383°N 3.317°E / 50.383; 3.317
Country	France
Region	Hauts-de-France
Prefecture	Lille
Subprefectures	Avesnes- sur-Helpe Cambrai Douai Dunkirk Valenciennes
Government
• President of the Departmental Council	Christian Poiret[1]
Area 1
• Total	5,743 km2 (2,217 sq mi)
Population  (2021)[2]
• Total	2,611,293
• Rank	1st
• Density	450/km2 (1,200/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
ISO 3166 code	FR-59
Department number	59
Arrondissements	6
Cantons	41
Communes	648
^1 French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km2

Nord (French pronunciation: [nɔʁ] ^ⓘ; officially French: département du Nord; Picard: départémint dech Nord; Dutch: Noorderdepartement, lit. 'Northern Department') is a département in Hauts-de-France region, France bordering Belgium. It was created from the western halves of the historical counties of Flanders and Hainaut, and the Bishopric of Cambrai. The modern coat of arms was inherited from the County of Flanders.

Nord is the country's most populous département. It had a population of 2,608,346 in 2019.^[3] It also contains the metropolitan region of Lille (the main city and the prefecture of the département), the fourth-largest urban area in France after Paris, Lyon and Marseille. The department is the part of France where the French Flemish dialect of Dutch has historically been spoken as a native language. Similarly, the distinct French Picard dialect Ch'ti is spoken there.