France is divided into 27 administrative regions (French: régions, pronounced: [ʁe.ʒjɔ̃]), 22 of which are in Metropolitan France, and five of which are overseas. Corsica is a territorial collectivity (French collectivité territoriale), but is considered a region in mainstream usage, and is even shown as such on the INSEE website. Each mainland region and Corsica are further subdivided into departments, ranging in number from 2 to 8 per region for the metropolitan ones whereas the overseas regions technically consist of only one department each. The term region was officially created by the Law of Decentralisation (2 March 1982), which also gave regions their legal status. The first direct elections for regional representatives took place on 16 March 1986.