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To a large extent, modern France lies within clear limits of physical geography.Roughly half of its margin lies on sea coasts: one continuous coastline along "La Manche" ("the sleeve" or English Channel) and the Atlantic Ocean forming the country's north-western and western edge, and a shorter, separate coastline along the Mediterranean Sea forming its south-eastern edge.
From the 16th to the 17th centuries, the First French colonial empire stretched from a total area at its peak in 1680 to over 10,000,000 km 2 (3,900,000 sq mi), the second largest empire in the world at the time behind only the Spanish Empire.
The First French Empire [4] [a] or French Empire (French: Empire français; Latin: Imperium Francicum) and also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century.
True disaster came to what remained of France's colonial empire in 1791 when Saint Domingue (the Western third of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola), France's richest and most important colony, was riven by a massive slave revolt, caused partly by the divisions among the island's elite, which had resulted from the French Revolution of 1789.
Taking up of the Louisiana by La Salle in the name of the Kingdom of France New France at its greatest extent in 1710. Present-day Canada. New France (1534–1763) Present-day United States. The Fort Saint Louis (1685–1689) Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands (1650–1733) Fort Caroline in French Florida (occupation by Huguenots) (1562–1565)
The precise extent of either empire at its greatest territorial expansion is a matter of debate among scholars. Several empires in human history have been contenders for the largest of all time, depending on definition and mode of measurement. Possible ways of measuring size include area, population, economy, and power.
It is the precursor of modern France. It was divided into the following great fiefs: Aquitaine, Brittany, Burgundy, Catalonia, Flanders, Gascony, Gothia, the Île-de-France, and Toulouse. After 987, the kingdom came to be known as France, because the new ruling dynasty (the Capetians) were originally dukes of the Île-de-France.
The Kingdom of France is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the medieval and early modern period. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe from the High Middle Ages to 1848 during its dissolution.