This paper seeks to determine if and to what extent the territory can be considered as an explanatory factor of the firms’ creation. This possibility is backed up by the fact that the territory is first of all support of infrastructures, resources and organizations. It is also the place where more invisible elements and an entrepreneurial atmosphere take place and also influence new business dynamics. The novelty of the approach lies in the comparison between the explanatory power of these various elements taken separately and the geographical effect resulting from the use of the shift-share analysis. The approach is applied to the creation of new companies in the French departments. It shows that beside the usual factors related to the characteristics of the population and the structures, the intrinsic dynamics of the territory is an explanatory factor of the entrepreneurial performance and that its influence varies according to the activity of the entering companies.