OBJECTIVES: To estimate the prevalence of low vision (LV) and blindness in France. METHODS: Two national surveys were pooled together: (1) 2075 institutions (for children or adults with handicaps, the aged, and psychiatric centers) were selected at random from the French Health Ministry files in 18 predefined strata. Of the 15,403 subjects taken at random, 14,603 interviews (94.9%) were completed. (2) A random, stratified sample of 356,208 citizens living in the community was selected. From this sample, 21,760 subjects were further selected at random and 16,945 persons were interviewed. Three groups were defined, based upon subject interviews: blind, low vision (LV), and a control group (CG). Blindness and LV prevalence rates by age and gender were estimated. Extrapolation weights for France came from the 1999 national census survey. Geographical inequities were estimated with a logistic regression adjusted by age and occupational category. RESULTS: The prevalence rates of blindness and LV were 0.12% and 2.08%, respectively. They increased exponentially with age. No major difference was found by gender. 51.4% of blind subjects and 22.8% of the LV subjects declared they are included in a long-term disease registry. Aging was the most often declared (34.1%) reason for LV; post-natal diseases were most often cited (50.3%) for blindness. Injuries represented about 12% of the reasons for both blindness and LV. Large region differences in LV prevalence persisted after adjustment (OR: 0.35 to 2.10). This was not the case for blindness prevalence. Regions whose rates of ophthalmologists per capita were lower than the national average more often had statistically significant higher LV prevalence (43.8% versus 6.3%). CONCLUSION: LV is much more frequent than blindness. Aging was the most cited reason for LV. The inverse correlation between the number of ophthalmologists and the prevalence of LV suggests that further public health investments might help control the effect of aging on vision.