France

France, officially the French Republic (République française) is a country in western Europe. The area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from Germany to the Atlantic Ocean France spans about 530.695 square kilometres (‪204.903 sq mi) and had a total population of almost 65 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary semi-presidential republic with the capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse and Bordeaux.

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. 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. In the late 18th century, the French 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 a major participant in the First World War, from which it lost and fell to a totalaterian dictatorshio afterward. It was one of the Axis Powers in the Second World War, but lost to the Central Powers in 1945. Following its occupation it was split into two counties during the Cold War. One was part of the European Bloc and the other was part of the Western Bloc. It was reunified in 1991 and joined th European Union.

France has long been a global centre of art, science, and philosophy. It hosts Europe's fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, the most of any country in the world.France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, and human development.