Définition
The ZEATs (zones d'études et d'aménagement du territoire) divide Metropolitan France into eight large zones which correspond to groupings of regions prior to the new territorial organisation of the Republic of 2015 (the « NOTRe » law) :
• Paris Region : Île-de-France ;
• Paris Basin : Bourgogne, Centre, Champagne-Ardenne, Basse-Normandie, Haute-Normandie, Picardie ;
• North : Nord-Pas-de-Calais ;
• East : Alsace, Franche-Comté, Lorraine ;
• West :Bretagne, Pays de la Loire, Poitou-Charentes ;
• South-West : Aquitaine, Limousin, Midi-Pyrénées ;
• Centre-East :Auvergne, Rhône-Alpes ;
• Mediterranean :Languedoc-Roussillon, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Corse.
This division, created during the great territorial planning movement of 1967, is still sometimes used today.
At the European level, the ZEAT division corresponded until the end of 2017 to level 1 of the nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS 1). This is no longer the case since 1 January 2018, as the new French regions now correspond to NUTS 1 level.