Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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.
A map of France in 1843 under the July Monarchy. By the French Revolution, the Kingdom of France had expanded to nearly the modern territorial limits. The 19th century would complete the process by the annexation of the Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice (first during the First Empire, and then definitively in 1860) and some small papal (like Avignon) and foreign possessions.
In the 19th century, starting with the Occupation of Algeria in 1830, France began to establish a new empire in Africa and Southeast Asia. The following is a list of all countries that were part of the French colonial empires from 1534; 491 years ago () to the present, either entirely or in part, either under French sovereignty or as mandate.
The 19th century saw France expanding to nearly its modern territorial limits through annexations and overseas imperialism, notably in Algeria, Indochina, and Africa. Despite territorial gains, France faced challenges, including a slow population growth, compared to its European neighbors, and a late industrialization that saw a shift from ...
Map depicting the staged French pacification of Morocco through to 1934. The French Colonial Empire established a protectorate in Morocco between the years of 1912 to 1956. France's general approach to governing the protectorate of Morocco was a policy of in-direct rule where they co-opted existing governance systems to control the protectorate ...
[1] [2] During the 19th and 20th centuries, the French colonial empire was the second largest colonial empire in the world only behind the British Empire; it extended over 13,500,000 km 2 (5,200,000 sq mi) [3] [4] of land at its height in the 1920s and 1930s. In terms of population however, on the eve of World War II, France and her colonial ...
Before the expansion of early modern European powers, other empires had conquered and colonized territories, such as the Roman Empire in Europe, North Africa and Western Asia. Modern colonial empires first emerged with a race of exploration between the then most advanced European maritime powers, Portugal and Spain , during the 15th century. [ 2 ]
Hand-drawn map of one side of the Valley of Vesdre by French geographers (led by the Cassini family) from 1745 to 1748. In France, the first general maps of the territory using a measuring apparatus were made by the Cassini family during the 18th century on a scale of 1:86,400 (one centimeter on the chart corresponds to approximately 864 meters on the ground).