France (French: [f??

~s]), officially the French Republic (French: Rpublique franai

se [?epyblik f??~s?z]), is a transcontinental country comprising territory in we
stern 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 Fr
ance include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island te
rritories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 squar
e kilometres (248,573 sq mi)[1] and has a total population of 66.7 million.[VI][
8] It is a unitary semi-presidential republic with the capital in Paris, the cou
ntry'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. T
he area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, when the German
ic Franks conquered the region and formed the Kingdom of France.
France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victo
ry in the Hundred Years' War (1337 to 1453) strengthening state-building and pol
itical centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a g
lobal colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would be the se
cond largest in the world.[9] The 16th century was dominated by religious civil
wars between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). France became Europe's domin
ant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV.[10] In the late 18t
h century, the French Revolution overthrew the absolute monarchy, established on
e of modern history's earliest republics, and saw the drafting of the Declaratio
n of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which expresses the nation's ideals t
o 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. Follo
wing the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of gover
nments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870.
France was a major participant in the First World War, from which it emerged vic
torious, and was one of the Allied Powers in the Second World War, but came unde
r 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 19
60s 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 E
urope's fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receiv
es around 83 million foreign tourists annually, the most of any country in the w
orld.[11] France is a developed country with the world's sixth-largest economy b
y 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 we
ll in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, and hum
an development.[15][16] France remains a great power in the world,[17] being a f
ounding member of the United Nations, where it serves as one of the five permane
nt members of the UN Security Council, and a founding and leading member state o
f the European Union (EU).[18] It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atla
ntic Treaty Organization (NATO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Deve
lopment (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and La Francophonie.