Tarn (department)
French department
Tarn (French: [taʁ(n)], Occitan: [taɾ]) is a department in the Occitania region in Southern France. Named after the river Tarn, it had a population of 397,352 as of 2023. Its prefecture and largest city is Albi; it has a single subprefecture, Castres. In French, the inhabitants of Tarn are known as Tarnais (masculine) and Tarnaises (feminine). Its INSEE and postcode number is 81.
History
Tarn is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790, through application of the Law of 22 December 1789. It was created from part of the former province of Languedoc, and comprised the dioceses of Albi and Castres (which found themselves merged in 1817).
The new department had five districts: Albi, Castres, Lavaur, Gaillac, Lacaune. The capitals (now prefectures) were, alternatively, Albi and Castres but, from 1790 to 1797, the capital was only Albi; in 1797, the capital was moved to Castres. In 1800, Albi became again the capital of the department and the arrondissements were created; the department had four arrondissements: Albi, Castres, Gaillac and Lavaur.
The public source identifies “Tarn (department)” as french department. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Tarn, department and French.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12772. VIAF identifies the subject as 168071483. The Library of Congress control number is n50068849. Authority coordinates are 43.910, 2.109. 1 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2023, 1790, 1789 and 1817.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tarn (department)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.