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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.
France, [IX] officially the French Republic, [X] is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Its overseas regions and 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, giving it one of the largest discontiguous exclusive economic zones in the world.
A topographic map of the Republic, excluding all the overseas departments and territories Simplified physical map. The geography of France consists of a terrain that is mostly flat plains or gently rolling hills in the north and the west and mountainous in the south (including the Massif Central and the Pyrenees) and the east (the country's highest points being in the Alps).
Although the full extent of the duchy, as well as its name, fluctuated greatly over the centuries and at times comprised much of what is now southwestern and central France. The territory originated in 507 as a constituent kingdom of the Frankish kingdom after the Salian Franks conquered Aquitaine following the Battle of Vouillé , ultimately a ...
France became actively involved in fighting against international terrorism. In 2002, Alliance Base, an international Counterterrorist Intelligence Center, was secretly established in Paris. France contributed to the toppling of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, but it strongly rejected the 2003 invasion of Iraq. [165]
The First French Empire [5] or French Empire (French: Empire français; Latin: Imperium Francicum), 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.
In 1914, the territory of France was different from today's France in two important ways: most of Alsace and the northeastern part of Lorraine had been annexed by Germany in 1870 (following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871), and the North African country of Algeria had been established as an integral part of France in 1848.
TVG stands for train à grande vitesse, which is French for "train of great speed"), and is the name of France's high-speed rail service. France is the most visited country in the world, receiving over 79 million foreign tourists annually (including business visitors, but excluding people staying less than 24 hours in France). [4] Economic rank