Yvelines

Yvelines
Department
Prefecture building of the Yvelines department, in Versailles
Coat of arms
Location of Yvelines in France
Coordinates: 48°50′N 1°55′E / 48.833°N 1.917°E / 48.833; 1.917Coordinates: 48°50′N 1°55′E / 48.833°N 1.917°E / 48.833; 1.917
Country	France
Region	Île-de-France
Prefecture	Versailles
Subprefectures	Mantes-la-Jolie Rambouillet Saint-Germain- en-Laye
Government
• President of the General Council	Pierre Bédier
Area
• Total	2,284 km2 (882 sq mi)
Population (2013)
• Total	1,418,484
• Rank	9th
• Density	620/km2 (1,600/sq mi)
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Department number	78
Arrondissements	4
Cantons	21
Communes	262
^1 French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km2

Yvelines (French pronunciation: ​[ivlin]) is a French department in the region of Île-de-France.

Yvelines was created from the western part of the former department of Seine-et-Oise on 1 January 1968 in accordance with a law passed on 10 January 1964 and a décret d'application (a decree specifying how a law should be enforced) from 26 February 1965. It inherited Seine-et-Oise's official number of 78.

It gained the communes of Châteaufort and Toussus-le-Noble from the adjacent department of Essonne in 1969.

The departmental capital, Versailles, which grew up around Louis XIV's château, was also the French capital for more than a century under the Ancien Régime and again between 1871 and 1879 during the early years of the Third Republic. Since then the château has continued to welcome the French Parliament when it is called upon to sit in a congressional sitting (with both houses sitting together) in order to enact constitutional changes or to listen to a formal declaration by the president.

Yvelines is bordered by the departments of Val-d'Oise on the north, Hauts-de-Seine on the east, Essonne on the southeast, Eure-et-Loir on the southwest, and Eure on the west.