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. Metropolitan France shares
borders with Belgium and Luxembourg to the north; Germany to the northeast;
Switzerland to the east; Italy and Monaco to the southeast; Andorra and Spain to
the south; and a maritime border with the United Kingdom to the northwest. Its
metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the
Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea. Its eighteen integral
regions—five of which are overseas—span a combined area of 632,702 km2 (244,288 sq
mi) and have an estimated total population of over 68.6 million as of January 2025.
France is a semi-presidential republic and its capital, largest city and main
cultural and economic centre is Paris.

Metropolitan France was settled during the Iron Age by Celtic tribes known as Gauls
before Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, leading to a distinct Gallo-Roman culture.
In the Early Middle Ages, the Franks formed the kingdom of Francia, which became
the heartland of the Carolingian Empire. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned
the empire, with West Francia evolving into the Kingdom of France. In the High
Middle Ages, France was a powerful but decentralized feudal kingdom, but from the
mid-14th to the mid-15th centuries, France was plunged into a dynastic conflict
with England known as the Hundred Years' War. In the 16th century, French culture
flourished during the French Renaissance and a French colonial empire emerged.
Internally, France was dominated by the conflict with the House of Habsburg and the
French Wars of Religion between Catholics and Huguenots. France was successful in
the Thirty Years' War and further increased its influence during the reign of Louis
XIV.

The French Revolution of 1789 overthrew the Ancien Régime and produced the
Declaration of the Rights of Man, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day.
France reached its political and military zenith in the early 19th century under
Napoleon Bonaparte, subjugating part of continental Europe and establishing the
First French Empire. The collapse of the empire initiated a period of relative
decline, in which France endured the Bourbon Restoration until the founding of the
French Second Republic which was succeeded by the Second French Empire upon
Napoleon III's takeover. His empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War in
1870. This led to the establishment of the Third French Republic, and subsequent
decades saw a period of economic prosperity and cultural and scientific flourishing
known as the Belle Époque. France was one of the major participants of World War I,
from which it emerged victorious at great human and economic cost. It was among the
Allies of World War II, but it surrendered and was occupied in 1940. Following its
liberation in 1944, the short-lived Fourth Republic was established and later
dissolved in the course of the defeat in the Algerian War. The current Fifth
Republic was formed in 1958 by Charles de Gaulle. Algeria and most French colonies
became independent in the 1960s, with the majority retaining close economic and
military ties with France.

France retains its centuries-long status as a global centre of art, science, and
philosophy. It hosts the fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and
is the world's leading tourist destination, having received 100 million foreign
visitors in 2023. A developed country, France has a high nominal per capita income
globally, and its advanced economy ranks among the largest in the world by both
nominal GDP and PPP-adjusted GDP. It is a great power, being one of the five
permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and an official nuclear-
weapon state. The country is part of multiple international organizations and
forums.

Etymology
Originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the
Latin Francia, or 'realm of the Franks'.[13] The name of the Franks is related to
the English word frank ('free'): the latter stems from the Old French franc ('free,
noble, sincere'), and ultimately from the Medieval Latin word francus ('free,
exempt from service; freeman, Frank"', a generalisation of the tribal name that
emerged as a Late Latin borrowing of the reconstructed Frankish endonym *Frank.[14]
[15] It has been suggested that the meaning 'free' was adopted because, after the
conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation,[16] or more generally because
they had the status of freemen in contrast to servants or slaves.[15] The etymology
of *Frank is uncertain. It is traditionally derived from the Proto-Germanic word
*frankōn, which translates as 'javelin' or 'lance' (the throwing axe of the Franks
was known as the francisca),[17] although these weapons may have been named because
of their use by the Franks, not the other way around.[15]

In English, 'France' is pronounced /fræns/ FRANSS in American English and /frɑːns/