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Updates: 

I've acquired the 2008 census data.

Country overview: 

Short name	REUNION
ISO code	RE
FIPS code	RE
Language	French (fr)
Time zone	+4
Capital	Saint-Denis

 

Reunion was a French possession until 1946, when it was made an overseas department of France. Reunion has a NUTS code of FR94 (as a region, or FR940 as a department), a department code of 974, and postal codes of the form 974xx, all of which are extensions of the French system.

Other names of country: 

1. English: Department of Reunion (formal)
2. French: Réunion f, Île f Bourbon (obsolete)
3. German: Réunion
4. Italian: Riunione
5. Norwegian: Réunion
6. Portuguese: Reunião
7. Russian: Реюньон
8. Spanish: Reunión
9. Turkish: Reunion

Origin of name: 

French réunion: meeting, in commemoration of the meeting on 1792-08-10 of forces which stormed the Tuileries Palace

Primary subdivisions: 

Reunion is divided into four arrondissements.

Arrondissement	HASC	INSEE	Population	Area(km.²)	Area(mi.²)
Saint-Benoît	RE.BN	9743	121,205	737	285
Saint-Denis	RE.DE	9741	199,409	288	111
Saint-Paul	RE.PA	9744	212,788	537	207
Saint-Pierre	RE.PI	9742	296,501	943	364
5 divisions			829,903	2,505	967
Arrondissement: except for Îles Éparses, which are French possessions administered by Reunion. HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. INSEE: Arrondissement code used by INSEE (Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques). Population: 2010-01-01 legal population (source [6]). Capitals: Capitals of arrondissements have the same names as the arrondissements.

Further subdivisions:

See the Communes of Reunion page.

The arrondissements are subdivided into 24 communes, which are further subdivided into 44 cantons. In 1988-09, eight new cantons were created. Two cantons merged into one in 1991. The larger communes have several cantons; the smaller have just one.

Territorial extent: 

The UN LOCODE page  for Reunion lists locations in the country, some of them with their latitudes and longitudes, some with their ISO 3166-2 codes for their subdivisions. This information can be put together to approximate the territorial extent of subdivisions.

Origins of names: 

1. Saint-Denis: named for the patron saint of France

Change history: 

A Web page posted by Lycée de la Rivière , a school in Reunion, gives the following history of the administrative divisions of the island.

Before the French Revolution, the French colonial administration divided the island into quartiers (districts) and paroisses (parishes). On 1789-11-12, the French National Assembly issued a decree dividing Reunion into municipalités. The colony's assembly adopted the decree on 1790-07-23. It then passed a regulation on 1790-12-17, creating a municipal system based on the parishes. The divisions were called cantons from 1793 until 1795-05. From 1795 to 1798, they were reduced in number to five, and subdivided into districts or sections. These, in turn, were given the status of communes in 1798. At that time, there were eleven of them: Saint André, Saint Benoît, Saint Denis, Sainte Marie, Sainte Rose, Sainte Suzanne, Saint Joseph, Saint Leu, Saint Louis, Saint Paul, and Saint Pierre. On 1803-10-01, the communes were abolished and replaced by the old districts as they stood in 1789. Finally, in 1815, the eleven parishes of 1789 were re-established with a status of communes.

The colony was made into an overseas department by a French law of 1946-03-19. The process was slow: the first prefect (departmental chief executive) was named on 1947-07-20, and governing power passed to him on 1947-08-15. Reunion became a region of France in 1982, and the first regional council was elected on 1986-03-16. Like the other overseas departments, Reunion is a region with just one department.

1. 1946-03-19: Reunion became a département d'outre-mer (overseas department) of France, a status nominally equivalent to a European department of France. It had one arrondissement, Saint-Denis.
2. 1960: Administration of Îles Éparses transferred to Reunion.
3. 1964-09-05: Saint-Pierre arrondissement split from Saint-Denis. Saint-Denis was also called Arrondissement-du-Vent (Windward), and Saint-Pierre was Arrondissement-sous-le-Vent (Leeward).
4. 1968-10-02: Saint-Benoît arrondissement split from Saint-Denis.
5. 1969-09-24: Saint-Paul arrondissement split from Saint-Pierre.
6. 1973-03-02: Reunion became a monodepartmental region of France.
7. 2005-01-03: Administration of Îles Éparses transferred from Reunion to French Southern Territories.
8. 2006-09-01: La Possession and Le Port communes transferred from Saint-Denis to Saint-Paul; Les Avirons and L'Etang-Salé communes transferred from Saint-Paul to Saint-Pierre. Before this change, the HASC codes for Saint-Denis, Saint-Paul, and Saint-Pierre were respectively RE.DN, RE.PL, RE.PR

Other names of subdivisions: 

Glorioso Islands: Îles Glorieuses (French)

Population history:

Arrondissement	1954-07-01	1961-10-09	1967	1974-10-16	1982-03-09	1990-03-15	1999-03-08	2010-01-01
Saint-Benoît	42,064	54,047	61,289	66,204	74,313	85,132	101,804	121,205
Saint-Denis	77,682	108,172	138,356	167,242	180,652	207,158	236,599	199,409
Saint-Paul	55,050	65,650	75,527	86,287	94,380	113,071	138,551	212,788
Saint-Pierre	99,574	121,413	141,353	156,942	166,469	192,462	229,346	296,501
Total	274,370	349,282	416,525	476,675	515,814	597,823	706,300	829,903

 

Populations before 1970 are proleptic to 2000, but do not reflect the commune shifts of 2006.

Sources: 

1. [1] "Présentation de la Réunion", web page created by students at Lycée de La Rivière, had a history of administrative divisions (http://www.ac-reunion.fr/pedagogie/lyriviere/concours_etd.htm, dead link, retrieved 2000-12-27).
2. [2] 1999 census data are from an INSEE (Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques) page, retrieved 2003-07-30.
3. [3] Demographic Yearbook , 7th Ed. Statistical Office of the United Nations, New York, 1955. This source has 1954 census data (retrieved 2011-08-20).
4. [4] Populations légales 2008 pour les départements et les collectivités d'outre-mer , INSEE (retrieved 2011-11-03).
5. [5] Site sur la Population et les Limites Administratives de la France  (SPLAF), "Agglomérations et villes de La Réunion" (retrieved 2005-07-16). This is the source for census data from 1961 to 1990.
6. [6] Populations légales ... . Insee (retrieved 2013-05-04).