France (French: [f s]), officially the French Republic (French: Rpublique franaise [epyblik

f sz]), is atranscontinental country comprising territory in western Europe and several overseas
regions and territories.[XVI] The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from
the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic
Ocean. Overseas France include French Guiana on the South Americancontinent and several island
territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres
(248,573 sq mi)[1] and has a total population of 66.7 million.[VI][8] It is a unitary semipresidential republicwith the capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial
centre. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls,
a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, when
the Germanic Franks conquered the region and formed the Kingdom of France.
France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred
Years' War (1337 to 1453) strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During
the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the
20th century would be the second largest in the world.[9]The 16th century was dominated by religious
civil wars between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). France became Europe's dominant cultural,
political, and military power under Louis XIV.[10] In the late 18th century, theFrench Revolution overthrew
the absolute monarchy, established one of modern history's earliest republics, and saw the drafting of
the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day.
In the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose
subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the
Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of
the French Third Republic in 1870. France was amajor participant in the First World War, from which
it emerged victorious, and was one of the Allied Powers in theSecond World War, but came
under occupation by the Axis Powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was
established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War. The Fifth Republic, led by Charles de
Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became
independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic and military
connections with France.
France has long been a global centre of art, science, and philosophy. It hosts Europe's fourthlargest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million
foreign tourists annually, the most of any country in the world.[11] France is a developed country with the
world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP[12] and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity.[13] In
terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world.[14] France performs well in international
rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, and human development.[15][16]France remains a great
power in the world,[17] being a founding member of the United Nations, where it serves as one of the
five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and a founding and leading member state of the
European Union (EU).[18] It is also a member of 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.