France Country Info - Europe

Description and Basic Information

France with its capital Paris is located in Europe (Western Europe, bordering the Bay of Biscay and English Channel). It covers some 547,031 square kilometres (slightly less than the size of Texas) with 64,094,000 citizens. French, Breton, Corsican, Catalan and Basque are the official languages spoken in France (consider regional differences). Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Andorra, Monaco and Spain are bordering countries.

France is a country located in Western Europe. Clockwise from the north, France borders Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast, Switzerland to the east, Italy to the south-east and Spain to the south-west, across the Pyrenees mountain range (the small country of Andorra lies in between the two countries). France has been the world's most popular tourist destination for over twenty years (81.9 million in 2007) and it's geographically one of the most diverse countries in Europe. Its cities contain some of the greatest treasures in Europe, its countryside is prosperous and well tended and it boasts dozens of major tourist attractions, like Paris, the French Riviera, the Atlantic beaches, the winter sport resorts of the French Alps, the castles of the Loire Valley, Brittany and Normandy.

Pictures from Capital (Paris)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About France

The landscape features mostly flat plains or gently rolling hills in north and west and the remainder being mountainous, especially Pyrenees in south, Alps in east. The average density of population is about 117 per km². The climate in France can be described as generally cool winters and mild summers, but mild winters and hot summers along the Mediterranean with occasional strong, cold, dry, north-to-northwesterly wind known as mistral. Potential threats by nature are flooding or avalanches, midwinter windstorms, drought or forest fires in south near the Mediterranean.

To reach someone in France dial +33 prior to a number. There are 36,441,000 installed telephones. And there are 60,950,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900, 1800 MHz and 3G. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".fr". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 230V - 50Hz. The following list are the 22 regions/states in France we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total French population grew at a rate of 0.53% (or by 340,034 citizens). With 560,247 deaths and 805,071 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 0.38%. 95,210 persons more in total immigrated to the country than emmigrated.

An overview of age distribution in France: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.