France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country primarily located 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. 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 18 integral regions—five of which are overseas—span a combined area of, with a total population estimated at 69.1 million in 2026. 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 decentralised 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 much of continental Europe and establishing the First French Empire. Its collapse 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 French Third Republic, and 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 by Germany in 1940. Following its liberation in 1944, the short-lived Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved over the course of the Algerian War. The current Fifth Republic, a semi-presidential system, 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 over 100 million foreign visitors in 2024. A developed country, France has a high nominal per capita income globally, and its 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 organisations and forums.
Etymology
Originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or 'realm of the Franks'. The name of the Franks is related to the English word frank : the latter stems from the Old French franc, and ultimately from the Medieval Latin word francus, a generalisation of the tribal name that emerged as a Late Latin borrowing of the reconstructed Frankish endonym *Frank. It has been suggested that the meaning 'free' was adopted because after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation, or more generally because they had the status of freemen in contrast to servants or slaves. The etymology of *Frank is uncertain. It is traditionally derived from the Proto-Germanic word frankōn, which translates as 'javelin' or 'lance', although these weapons may have been named because of their use by the Franks, not the other way around.In English, 'France' is pronounced in American English and or in British English. The pronunciation with is mostly confined to accents with the trap–bath split such as Received Pronunciation, though it can be also heard in some other dialects such as Cardiff English.
History
Prehistory
The oldest traces of archaic humans in what is now France date from approximately 1.8 million years ago. Neanderthals occupied the region into the Upper Paleolithic era but were slowly replaced by Homo sapiens around 35,000 BC. This period witnessed the emergence of cave painting in the Dordogne and Pyrenees, including at Lascaux, dated to BC. At the end of the Last Glacial Period, the climate became milder; from approximately 7,000 BC, this part of Western Europe entered the Neolithic era, and its inhabitants became sedentary.After demographic and agricultural development between the 4th and 3rd millennia BC, metallurgy appeared, initially working gold, copper and bronze, then later iron. France has numerous megalithic sites from the Neolithic, including the Carnac stones site.
Antiquity (6th century BC – 5th century AD)
In 600 BC, Ionian Greeks from Phocaea founded the colony of Massalia. Celtic tribes penetrated parts of eastern and northern France, spreading through the rest of the country between the 5th and 3rd century BC. Around 390 BC, the Gallic chieftain Brennus and his troops made their way to Roman Italy, defeated the Romans in the Battle of the Allia, and besieged and ransomed Rome. This left Rome weakened, and the Gauls continued to harass the region until 345 BC when they entered into a peace treaty. But the Romans and the Gauls remained adversaries for centuries.File:France-002364 - Square House.jpg|thumb|alt=Maison Carrée temple in Nemausus Corinthian columns and portico|The Maison carrée was a temple of the Gallo-Roman city of Nemausus and is one of the best-preserved Roman temples anywhere.
Around 125 BC, the south of Gaul was conquered by the Romans, who called this region Gallia Narbonensis, which evolved into Provence in French. Julius Caesar conquered the remainder of Gaul and overcame a revolt by Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix in 52 BC. Gaul was divided by Augustus into provinces, and many cities were founded during the Gallo-Roman period, including Lugdunum, the capital of the Gauls. In 250–290 AD, Roman Gaul suffered a crisis with its fortified borders attacked by barbarians. The situation improved in the first half of the 4th century, a period of revival and prosperity. In 312, Emperor Constantine I converted to Christianity. Christians, who had been persecuted, increased. But from the 5th century, the barbarian invasions resumed. Teutonic tribes invaded the region, the Visigoths settling in the southwest, the Burgundians along the Rhine Valley, and the Franks in the north.
Early Middle Ages (5th–10th century)
In late antiquity, Gaul was divided into Germanic kingdoms and a remaining Gallo-Roman territory. Celtic Britons, fleeing the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, settled in west Armorica; the Armorican peninsula was renamed Brittany, and Celtic culture was revived.The first leader to unite all Franks was Clovis I, who began his reign as king of the Salian Franks in 481, routing the last forces of the Roman governors in 486. Clovis said he would be baptised a Christian in the event of victory against the Visigothic Kingdom, which was said to have guaranteed the battle. Clovis regained the southwest from the Visigoths and was baptised in 508. Clovis was the first Germanic conqueror after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire to convert to Catholic Christianity; thus France was given the title "Eldest daughter of the Church" by the papacy, and French kings were called "the Most Christian Kings of France".
File:Chlodwigs taufe.jpg|thumb|alt=painting of Clovis I conversion to Catholicism in 498, a king being baptised in a tub in a cathedral surrounded by bishop and monks|With Clovis's conversion to Catholicism in 498, the Frankish monarchy, elective and secular until then, became hereditary and of divine right.
The Franks embraced the Christian Gallo-Roman culture, and Gaul was renamed Francia. The Germanic Franks adopted Romanic languages. Clovis made Paris his capital and established the Merovingian dynasty, but his kingdom would not survive his death. The Franks treated land as a private possession and divided it among their heirs, so four kingdoms emerged from that of Clovis: Paris, Orléans, Soissons, and Rheims. The last Merovingian kings lost power to their mayors of the palace. One mayor of the palace, Charles Martel, defeated an Umayyad invasion at the Battle of Tours in 732. His son, Pepin the Short, seized the crown of Francia from the weakened Merovingians and founded the Carolingian dynasty. Pepin's son Charlemagne reunited the Frankish kingdoms and built an empire across Western and Central Europe.
Proclaimed Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III and thus establishing the French government's longtime historical association with the Catholic Church, Charlemagne tried to revive the Western Roman Empire and its cultural grandeur. Charlemagne's son Louis I kept the empire united, however in 843 it was divided between Louis' three sons into East Francia, Middle Francia and West Francia. West Francia approximated the area occupied by modern France and was its precursor.
During the 9th and 10th centuries, threatened by Viking invasions, France became a decentralised state: the nobility's titles and lands became hereditary, and the authority of the king became more religious than secular and so was less effective and challenged by noblemen. Thus was established feudalism in France. Some king's vassals grew so powerful they posed a threat to the king. After the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror added "King of England" to his titles, becoming vassal and the equal of the king of France, creating recurring tensions.