France officially the French Republic


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France


France officially the French Republic (French: République française) is a country located primarily in Webstern Europe. It also includes overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, giving it one of the largest discontiguous exclusive economic zones in the world. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea; overseas territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Its eighteen integral regions (five of which are overseas) span a combined area of 643,801 km2 (248,573 sq mi) and had a total population of over 68 million as of January 2023.
France is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre; other major urban areas include MarseilleLyonToulouseLilleBordeaux, and Nice.

https://www.planetware.com/wpimages/2020/02/france-in-pictures-beautiful-places-to-photograph-eiffel-tower.jpg
Location and borders

The vast majority of France's territory and population is situated in Western Europe and is called Metropolitan France, to distinguish it from the country's various overseas polities. It is bordered by the North Sea in the north, the English Channel in the northwest, the Atlantic Ocean in the west and the Mediterranean sea in the southeast. Its land borders consist of Belgium and Luxembourg in the northeast, Germany and Switzerland in the east, Italy and Monaco in the southeast, and Andorra and Spain in the south and southwest. Except for the northeast, most of France's land borders are roughly delineated by natural boundaries and geographic features: to the south and southeast, the Pyrenees and the Alps and the Jura, respectively, and to the east, the Rhine river. Due to its shape, France is often referred to as l'Hexagone ("The Hexagon"). Metropolitan France includes various coastal islands, of which the largest is Corsica. Metropolitan France is situated mostly between latitudes 41° and 51° N, and longitudes 6° W and 10° E, on the western edge of Europe, and thus lies within the northern temperate zone. Its continental part covers about 1000 km from north to south and from east to west.


France has several overseas regions across the world, which are organised as follows:

  • five have the same status as mainland France's regions and departments:

    • French Guiana in South America;

    • Guadeloupe in the Caribbean;

    • Martinique in the Caribbean;

    • Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of East Africa;

    • Réunion in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of East Africa.

  • nine have special legal status distinct from mainland France's regions and departments:

    • In the Atlantic Ocean: Saint Pierre and Miquelon and, in the Antilles: Saint Martin and Saint Barthélemy.

    • In the Pacific Ocean: French Polynesia, the special collectivity of New CaledoniaWallis and Futuna and Clipperton Island.

    • In the Indian Ocean: the Kerguelen IslandsCrozet IslandsSt. Paul and Amsterdam islands, and the Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean

    • In the Antarctic: Adélie Land.

France has land borders with Brazil and Suriname via French Guiana and with the Kingdom of the Netherlands through the French portion of Saint Martin.
Metropolitan France covers 551,500 square kilometres (212,935 sq mi),[87] the largest among European Union members.[20] France's total land area, with its overseas departments and territories (excluding Adélie Land), is 643,801 km2 (248,573 sq mi), 0.45% of the total land area on Earth. France possesses a wide variety of landscapes, from coastal plains in the north and west to mountain ranges of the Alps in the southeast, the Massif Central in the south-central and Pyrenees in the southwest.
Due to its numerous overseas departments and territories scattered across the planet, France possesses the second-largest Exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the world, covering 11,035,000 km2 (4,261,000 sq mi), just behind the EEZ of the United States, which covers 11,351,000 km2 (4,383,000 sq mi), but ahead of the EEZ of Australia, which covers 8,148,250 km2 (3,146,000 sq mi). Its EEZ covers approximately 8% of the total surface of all the EEZs of the world.

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