France Travel /
Tourism.
France, officially the
French Republic, is a unitary sovereign state comprising territory in western
Europe and several overseas regions and territories.
Metropolitan France extends from the
Mediterranean Sea to the
English Channel and the
North Sea, and from the Rhine to the
Atlantic Ocean; due to its shape, it is often referred to in
French as l’
Hexagone ("
The Hexagon"). France is one of only three countries (with
Morocco and
Spain) to have both
Atlantic and
Mediterranean coastlines. France has a population of 66.6 million. It is a semi-presidential republic with its capital in
Paris, the nation's largest city and the main cultural and commercial center.
The Constitution of France establishes the country as secular and democratic, with its sovereignty derived from the people.
During the
Iron Age, what is now France was inhabited by the Gauls, a
Celtic people. The Gauls were conquered by the
Roman Empire in 51 BC, which held Gaul until
486. The Gallo-Romans faced raids and migration from the
Germanic Franks, who dominated the region for hundreds of years, eventually creating the medieval
Kingdom of France. France has been a major power in Europe since the
Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the
Hundred Years' War (1337 to 1453) strengthening
French nationalism and paving the way for a future centralized absolute monarchy. During the
Renaissance, France experienced a vast cultural development and established the first steps of a worldwide colonial empire.
The 16th century was dominated by
Religious Civil Wars primarily fought between
Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots).
Louis XIV made France the dominant cultural, political and military power in Europe, but by the late
18th century, the monarchy was overthrown in the
French Revolution. One legacy of the revolution was the
Declaration of the
Rights of Man and of the
Citizen, one of the world's earliest documents on human rights, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day.
The country was governed as one of history's earliest Republics, until the
Empire was declared by
Napoleon Bonaparte, who dominated
European affairs and had a long-lasting impact on
Western culture.
Following his defeat, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments: an absolute monarchy was restored, replaced in 1830 by a constitutional monarchy, then briefly by a
Second Republic, and then by a
Second Empire, until a more lasting
French Third Republic was established in
1870.
France's colonial empire reached the height of global prominence during the 19th and early
20th centuries, when it possessed the second-largest colonial empire in the world. In
World War I, France was one of the
Triple Entente powers fighting against
Germany and the
Central Powers. France was one of the
Allied Powers in
World War II, but it was occupied by
Nazi Germany in
1940. Following liberation in
1944, a
Fourth Republic was established, but it was dissolved in the course of the
Algerian War and replaced by the
Charles de Gaulle-led
French Fifth Republic. Into the
1960s decolonization saw most of the
French colonial empire become independent. Throughout its long history, France has produced many influential artists, thinkers, and scientists, and remains a prominent global center of culture. It hosts the world's fourth-largest number of cultural
UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually – the most of any country in the world.
France remains a great power with significant cultural, economic, military, and political influence in Europe and around the world. It is a developed country with the world's fifth-largest economy by nominal
GDP and eighth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of total household wealth, France is the wealthiest nation in Europe and fourth in the world.
French citizens enjoy a high standard of living, and the country performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, civil liberties, and human development. France is a founding member of the
United Nations, where it serves as one of the five permanent members of the
UN Security Council. It is a member of numerous international institutions, including the
Group of 7,
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (
NATO),
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (
OECD), the
World Trade Organization (
WTO), and
La Francophonie. France is a founding and leading member state of the EU.
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- published: 12 Jan 2015
- views: 355