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 632,702 km2 (244,288 sq mi), with a total population estimated at over 69.1 million in 2026. Its capital, largest city and main cultural and economic centre is Paris, with a metropolitan population of over 13 million.
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 after Philip II defeated the Angevin Empire and won the Battle of Bouvines, it became more centralized and became the most powerful country in Europe. 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. Under his rule, the nation built Europe's strongest army, fought a series of wars, and experienced artistic and scientific flourishing.
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 during 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, as well as 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, cuisine and philosophy. It hosts the fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, with 54 in total, and is the world's leading tourist destination, having received 102 million foreign visitors in 2025. A developed country, France has a high nominal per capita GDP 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 ('free'): the latter stems from the Old French franc ('free, noble, sincere') and ultimately from the Medieval Latin word francus ('free, exempt from service; a freeman, a Frank'), 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 to 'javelin' or 'lance' (the throwing axe of the Franks was known as the francisca), although these weapons may have been named because of their use by the Franks, not the other way around.
In English, 'France' is pronounced FRANSS in American English and FRAHNSS or FRANSS 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 c. 18,000 BC. At the end of the Last Glacial Period (10,000 BC), 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 (approximately 3,300 BC).
Antiquity (6th century BC – 5th century AD)
In 600 BC, Ionian Greeks from Phocaea founded the colony of Massalia (present-day Marseille). 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. However, the Romans and the Gauls remained adversaries for centuries.
Around 125 BC, the south of Gaul was conquered by the Romans, who called this region Provincia Nostra ("Our Province"), 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 (present-day Lyon), 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. The Christian demographic, who had been persecuted, increased. However, the onset of the 5th century marked the resumption of major tribal migrations. 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".
The Franks embraced the Christian Gallo-Roman culture, and Gaul was renamed Francia ("Land of the Franks"). 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 (head of household). 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, although it was divided between Louis' three sons into East Francia, Middle Francia and West Francia in 843. West Francia approximated the area occupied by modern France and was its precursor.
Throughout the 9th and 10th centuries, incessant Viking raids severely weakened the Carolingian monarchy, accelerating the fragmentation of West Francia into a decentralised, feudal society. As central authority faltered, local nobility secured hereditary rights to their titles and lands, creating a system where the king's authority became more religious and symbolic than secular, frequently challenged by powerful territorial princes. 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.
High and Late Middle Ages (10th–15th century)
The Carolingian dynasty ruled France until 987, when Hugh Capet was crowned king of the Franks. His descendants unified the country through wars and inheritance. From 1190, the Capetian rulers began to be referred as "kings of France" rather than "kings of the Franks". Later kings expanded their directly possessed domaine royal to cover over half of modern France by the 15th century. Royal authority became more assertive, centred on a hierarchically conceived society distinguishing nobility, clergy, and commoners.
The nobility played a prominent role in Crusades to restore Christian access to the Holy Land. French knights made up most reinforcements in the 200 years of the Crusades, in such a fashion that the Arabs referred to crusaders as Franj. French Crusaders imported French into the Levant, making Old French the base of the lingua franca ("Frankish language") of the Crusader states. The Albigensian Crusade was launched in 1209 to eliminate the heretical Cathars in the southwest of modern-day France.
From the 11th century, the House of Plantagenet, rulers of the County of Anjou, established its dominion over the surrounding provinces of Maine and Touraine, then built an "empire" from England to the Pyrenees, covering half of modern France. Tensions between France and the Plantagenet empire would last a hundred years, until Philip II of France conquered most of its continental possessions between 1202 and 1214 and defeated the Angevin coalition at the Battle of Bouvines, leaving only England and Aquitaine to the Plantagenets. Following this victory, France became the most prosperous and powerful kingdom in Europe.
Charles IV the Fair died without an heir in 1328. The crown passed to Philip of Valois rather than Edward Plantagenet, who had become Edward III of England the previous year. During the reign of Philip, the monarchy reached the height of its medieval power. Edward contested Philip's throne in 1337, beginning the intermittent Hundred Years' War between England and France. Boundaries changed, but landholdings inside France by English kings remained extensive for decades. With charismatic leaders such as Joan of Arc, French counterattacks won back most English continental territories. France was struck by the Black Death, from which half of the 17 million population died.
Early modern period (15th century–1789)
The French Renaissance saw cultural development and standardisation of French, which became the official language of France and Europe's aristocracy. France became rivals of the House of Habsburg during the Italian Wars, which would dictate much of their later foreign policy until the mid-18th century. French explorers claimed lands in the Americas, paving expansion of the French colonial empire. The rise of Protestantism led France to a series of civil wars known as the French Wars of Religion. Huguenots subsequently emigrated in significant numbers to Protestant regions including England, the Dutch Republic, and German Protestant states. The wars were ended by Henri IV's Edict of Nantes, which granted some freedom of religion to the Huguenots. Spanish troops assisted the Catholics from 1589 to 1594 and invaded France in 1597. Spain and France returned to all-out war between 1635 and 1659. The Franco-Spanish War cost France 300,000 casualties; total deaths on both sides were 200,000.
Under Louis XIII, Cardinal Richelieu promoted centralisation of the state and reinforced royal power. He destroyed castles of defiant lords and denounced the use of private armies. By the end of the 1620s, Richelieu established "the royal monopoly of force". France fought in the Thirty Years' War, supporting the Protestant side against the Habsburgs. From the 16th to the 19th century, France was responsible for about 10% of the transatlantic slave trade.
During Louis XIV's minority, trouble known as The Fronde occurred. This rebellion was driven by feudal lords and sovereign courts as a reaction to the royal absolute power. The monarchy reached its peak during the 17th century and reign of Louis XIV, during which France further increased its influence. By turning lords into courtiers at the Palace of Versailles, his command of the military went unchallenged. By the mid-17th century, France had emerged as the dominant power in Europe. Under the reign of Louis XIV, it built Europe's strongest army, fought a series of wars, and experienced remarkable artistic and scientific flourishing. It also became the most populous European country and had tremendous influence over European politics, economy, and culture. French became the most-used language in diplomacy, science, and literature until the 20th century. France took control of territories in the Americas, Africa and Asia. In 1685, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, forcing thousands of Huguenots into exile and published the Code Noir providing the legal framework for slavery and expelling Jews from French colonies.