In France, a pays (French: [pɛ.i] ⓘ) is an area whose inhabitants share common geographical, economic, cultural, or social interests, who have a right to enter into communal planning contracts under a law known as the Loi Pasqua or LOADT (Loi d'Orientation pour l'Aménagement et le Développement du Territoire; English: Directive law concerning territorial planning and development), which took effect on February 4, 1995.
The LOADDT enables the citizens of a community to form a legally recognized pays after deciding to do so by mutual consent; its aim is to help bring the inhabitants of urban and neighboring rural districts into dialogue and agreement.
In this context, the French term pays is not used in the modern sense of "country"[citation needed] but preserves the original meaning of the Latin word from which it was derived, pagus, which designated the territory controlled by a medieval count.
Today Pays de France still refers to a tiny area in northwest Ile-de-France, hence city names such as Roissy-en-France or Tremblay-en-France.
Although this word is frequently translated into English as country, its usage can mean a region or territory of a nation (bounded by borders and constituting a geographical entity) considered from the point of view of a certain identity or community of interest of its inhabitants.