New Caledonia Communes

Communes of New Caledonia

Originally, I wrote about the name of Boulouparis commune: "This is a curious case. All modern maps I could find show the spelling with no 's', but a Google search returns more than three times as many references to the spelling with the 's'." At that time I had no explanation; now I have two, which differ in detail. Tim Waters wrote, "it's a symbol of the pro-French stance of the town to change its name to be spelt more like that of Paris." This page says that the final 's' was added on 1973-03-28 as an homage to Jacques Chirac. It's not clear how a final 's' honors M. Chirac, who at that time was a cabinet member and member of the Chamber of Deputies. He was mayor of Paris from 1977-03-20 until 1995-05-16. This would make a lot more sense if the date of the name change was 1977-03-28 instead of 1973.

New Caledonia is divided into three provinces, which are further divided into 33 communes. However, one commune (Poya) is split between two provinces. Here are the communes of New Caledonia.

Commune	HASC	Code	Population	Capital
Bélep	`NC.NO.BE`	`01`	930	Waala
Boulouparis	`NC.SU.BP`	`02`	2,089	Boulouparis
Bourail	`NC.SU.BR`	`03`	4,779	Bourail
Canala	`NC.NO.CA`	`04`	3,512	Canala
Dumbéa	`NC.SU.DU`	`05`	18,602	Dumbéa
Farino	`NC.SU.FA`	`06`	459	Farino
Hienghène	`NC.NO.HI`	`07`	2,627	Hienghène
Houaïlou	`NC.NO.HO`	`08`	4,537	Houaïlou
Kaala-Gomen	`NC.NO.KG`	`10`	1,881	Kaala-Gomen
Koné	`NC.NO.KN`	`11`	4,500	Koné
Kouaoua	`NC.NO.KA`		1,586	Kouaoua
Koumac	`NC.NO.KM`	`12`	3,003	Koumac
La Foa	`NC.SU.LF`	`13`	2,903	La Foa
Lifou	`NC.IL.LI`	`14`	10,320	Wé
l'Île des Pins	`NC.SU.IP`	`09`	1,840	Vao
Maré	`NC.IL.MA`	`15`	7,401	Tadine
Moindou	`NC.SU.MO`	`16`	602	Moindou
Mont-Dore	`NC.SU.MD`	`17`	24,195	Mont-Dore
Nouméa	`NC.SU.NO`	`18`	91,386	Nouméa
Ouégoa	`NC.NO.OG`	`19`	2,114	Ouégoa
Ouvéa	`NC.IL.OV`	`20`	4,359	Fayaoué
Païta	`NC.SU.PA`	`21`	12,062	Païta
Poindimié	`NC.NO.PD`	`22`	4,824	Poindimié
Ponérihouen	`NC.NO.PH`	`23`	2,726	Ponérihouen
Pouébo	`NC.NO.PB`	`24`	2,381	Pouébo
Pouembout	`NC.NO.PT`	`25`	1,471	Pouembout
Poum	`NC.NO.PM`	`26`	1,390	Poum
Poya	`NC.NO.PY`	`27`	2,600	Poya
Sarraméa	`NC.SU.SA`	`28`	610	Sarraméa
Thio	`NC.SU.TH`	`29`	2,743	Thio
Touho	`NC.NO.TO`	`30`	2,274	Touho
Voh	`NC.NO.VO`	`31`	2,240	Voh
Yaté	`NC.SU.YA`	`32`	1,843	Yaté
HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. The middle two letters identify the province. For key, see "Administrative Subdivisions of Countries". Exception: Poya commune lies partly in Nord province and partly in Sud. Poya, the city, is in Nord. Code: INSEE code for commune. Prefix `988` to get the full code. Ex.: `98830` for Touho. INSEE is the French national statistics agency (Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques). Population: 2004-08-31 census.

Change history:

INSEE says that New Caledonia's division into communes is a result of Law No. 69-5 (1969-01-03), Decree No. 69-272 (1969-03-28), and Decree No. 77-20 (1977-01-05). I know from other sources that Poum commune was created in 1977-01, so I assume that its creation was due to Decree No. 77-20.
INSEE also says that Decree No. 89-512 (1989-07-24) reorganized New Caledonia into three administrative subdivisions: Nord, Sud, and Îles Loyauté. Moreover, the present statute has preserved the three provinces of New Caledonia, which were created by Referendary Law No. 88-1028 (1988-11-09). The provinces have the same names and territories as the subdivisions, except that the southern part of Poya commune is in Nord subdivision, but it's in Sud province.
1973-03-28: Name of Bouloupari commune changed to Boulouparis.
1977-01-05: Poum commune split from Koumac.
1995-04-25: Kouaoua commune split from Canala.

Other names of subdivisions:

Boulouparis: Bouloupari (obsolete)
Pouébo: Oubatche (obsolete)

Population history:

Commune	1956-12-06	1963-05-02	1969-03-10	1976-04-23	1983-04-15	1989-04-04	1996-04-16	2004-08-31
Bélep	529	573	551	624	686	745	923	930
Boulouparis	483	635	846	925	1,139	1,456	1,591	2,089
Bourail	2,212	2,312	2,433	3,149	3,410	4,122	4,364	4,779
Canala	2,816	3,097	3,559	3,884	3,842	3,966	3,374	3,512
Dumbéa	284	463	1,304	4,191	5,538	10,052	13,888	18,602
Farino	142	172	161	194	253	237	279	459
Hienghène	1,940	2,109	1,846	1,932	1,729	2,122	2,208	2,627
Houaïlou	2,241	2,808	3,475	3,853	3,995	3,671	4,332	4,537
Kaala-Gomen	1,161	1,228	1,296	1,425	1,231	1,549	1,787	1,881
Koné	2,037	2,340	2,557	2,479	2,919	2,919	4,088	4,500
Kouaoua							1,524	1,586
Koumac	2,759	2,059	1,907	2,481	1,405	2,194	2,647	3,003
La Foa	934	1,407	1,333	1,993	2,094	2,155	2,502	2,903
Lifou	5,594	6,082	6,837	7,585	8,128	8,726	10,007	10,320
l'Île des Pins	674	930	978	1,095	1,287	1,465	1,671	1,840
Maré	3,104	3,240	3,410	4,156	4,610	5,646	6,896	7,401
Moindou	272	392	291	387	378	461	568	602
Mont-Dore	1,288	2,640	4,809	10,659	14,614	16,370	20,780	24,195
Nouméa	22,235	34,990	41,853	56,078	60,112	65,110	76,293	91,386
Ouégoa	1,199	1,363	1,323	1,514	1,468	1,881	2,034	2,114
Ouvéa	2,180	2,087	2,001	2,777	2,772	3,540	3,974	4,359
Païta	1,397	1,903	2,522	3,407	4,834	6,049	7,862	12,062
Poindimié	2,152	2,519	2,481	3,010	3,644	3,590	4,340	4,824
Ponérihouen	1,840	1,853	1,948	2,065	1,932	2,326	2,691	2,726
Pouébo	1,294	1,388	1,472	1,782	1,503	2,242	2,352	2,381
Pouembout	482	577	587	734	692	854	1,189	1,471
Poum					816	1,038	1,320	1,390
Poya	1,066	1,019	1,281	2,915	1,961	1,862	2,522	2,600
Sarraméa	255	307	331	357	483	400	486	610
Thio	1,776	2,253	3,176	2,894	3,019	2,368	2,614	2,743
Touho	1,332	1,373	1,474	1,667	1,901	1,963	2,234	2,274
Voh	1,328	1,475	1,424	1,656	1,586	1,686	1,942	2,240
Yaté	1,474	925	1,113	1,365	1,387	1,408	1,554	1,843
Totals	68,480	86,519	100,579	133,233	145,368	164,173	196,836	230,789

Source: Institut de la Statistique et des Études Économiques - Nouvelle-Calédonie .

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