After taking you on a tour of the 10 most charming villages around Marseille, we now present France’s smallest village. Or rather, the village with the fewest inhabitants in France. Located 200km from the city of Marseille, this little Drôme village is a curiosity that attracts many. Rochefourchat covers an area of 12.73km2.
France’s smallest village is a 3-hour drive from Marseille.
It’s not next door. It’s not the other end of the world either. While Marseille, France’s second-largest city, has a population of over 860,000, Rochefourchat will have just one until 2024. If you’re wondering, the only inhabitant to have lived in this rural commune until 2024 was Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne from Martigny, who was by default the deputy mayor. Just goes to show, you don’t necessarily have to retire to a private island to avoid overcrowding and noisy neighbors!
This village in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region wasn’t always so depopulated. In the Middle Ages, Rochefourchat was part of the Comtat Venaissin, a former papal state. In 1793, four years after the French Revolution, the village that today holds the title of France’s smallest was home to 220 inhabitants.
Please note, however, that we’re talking about the number of inhabitants here, not the surface area. Furthermore, Castelmoron-d’Albret is the smallest village in France for its surface area (0.0354 km2 ), while Rochefourchat is the French village with the fewest inhabitants (apart from the 9 “villages morts pour la France” whichhave been completely uninhabited since the First World War).
A tourist attraction?
Located 75km from Valence, Rochefourchat’s nearest village is 4.5km away and has inherited a name that sets the tone: Saint-Nazaire-le-Désert. However, Rochefourchat is not a desert. Like any self-respecting small town, it has a church, a chapel, a cemetery, a sort of village square and even a building that doubles as the town hall.
If you’d like to get away from the big cities, this village has just six houses and an out-of-service phone booth (ready to save you from anything). For the record, the Rochefourchat cemetery contains the grave of Madeleine Farnier, an ancestor of Marcel Pagnol! And that’s not all: in the village, you’ll find a “Middle of Nowhere” plaque, proof that Rochefourchat belongs to the international network of ghostly contemporary art centers founded by French artist Laurent Mulot. Not bad for a village with just one inhabitant!
From 1 to 3 inhabitants by 2025
By 2024, Rochefourchat will have tripled its population! Initially, there was just one year-round resident. Today, there are three, but the population won’t be able to grow significantly, as the commune has just five houses (which really isn’t very many). Two of these, including the mayor’s, are second homes.
The change to three inhabitants has been officially recorded in the January 1, 2025 legal population update .