France

Mainland France is called the Hexagon by the French for its six-sided shape, with coasts on the Channel, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and land frontiers traced in part by the Rhine, the Alps and the Pyrenees. Mont Blanc, on the Italian border, is the highest peak in western Europe. Between these edges lie wide river basins drained by the Seine, the Loire, the Garonne and the Rhône, and the Massif Central, an upland of extinct volcanoes. Corsica and overseas regions from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean complete the country.

The Franks gave the country its name, and Charlemagne briefly united much of western Europe around 800. French kings went on to build one of the most centralised states in Europe. The Revolution of 1789 swept away the monarchy and noble privilege, and Napoleon carried its legal code across the continent. Two empires and five republics followed, the Fifth founded in 1958, and the end of empire in Africa and Asia left French spoken on several continents.

The state has long treated culture as public business, funding cinema and guarding the language through the Académie française. The French gastronomic meal is on UNESCO’s list of intangible heritage, and hundreds of cheeses and wines carry the names of the places that make them, from Roquefort to Champagne. The economy is strong in aircraft assembled at Toulouse, luxury goods, nuclear power, high-speed trains and banking, while Paris, the Riviera and the Alps draw visitors all year.