Val-d'Oise is a French department created in 1968 after the split of the Seine-et-Oise department and located in the Île-de-France region. It gets its name from the Oise River, a major tributary of the Seine, which crosses the region after having started in Belgium and flowed through north-eastern France. Charles de Gaulle Airport, France's main international airport is partially located in Roissy-en-France, a commune of Val d'Oise. To the south of the department lies the department of Hauts-de-Seine, to the southwest lies Yvelines, to the west lies Eure, to the north lies Oise, to the east lies Seine-et-Marne and to the southeast lies Seine-Saint-Denis. The official préfecture of the department is Pontoise situated in the suburbs of Paris some 28 kilometres northwest of the centre of the city, but the préfecture building and administrative offices are in the neighbouring commune of Cergy.
The River Oise is a right tributary of the River Seine, and flows through the province from northeast to southwest. The eastern part of the department is part of the Pays de France, an area of fertile plain traditionally used for agriculture (particularly cereals and sugar beet) based on its fine silty soils. This part is progressively diminishing in size as Paris expands. Part of Charles de Gaulle Airport falls in this eastern region, while other parts are in the departments of Seine-et-Marne and Seine-Saint-Denis. The southernmost region of the department forms part of the Seine Valley and occupies the whole of the small Vallée de Montmorency.
The department has a rich archaeological and historical heritage but is not a region visited much by tourists, perhaps being overshadowed by the French capital. Places of interest include the following sites; La Roche-Guyon with a castle on top of a rocky hill and a twelfth century château; L'Isle-Adam, a historic small town on the bank of the River Oise; Auvers-sur-Oise, which owes its international fame to its landscapes and the impressionist painters such as Charles-François Daubigny, Paul Cézanne, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Camille Pissarro and Vincent van Gogh who immortalised them; Enghien-les-Bains, a spa resort with a hot, sulphurous spring, on the site of what was originally Lake Enghien; Écouen with a fine château which houses the Museum of the Renaissance; Cergy-Pontoise, the new administrative capital which has been created out of thirteen communes and has quadrupled in population since the 1960s. Learn more about the department of Val-d'Oise on
wikipedia.