France
France, officially the French Republic is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The 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. It is bordered by Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast, Switzerland, Monaco, and Italy to the east, and Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The country's 18 integral regions (five of which are situated overseas) span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres and a total population of 67.07 million (as of May 2020). France is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice.
1. France is the world’s most popular tourist destination. Some 83.7 million visitors arrived in France, according to the World Tourism Organization report published in 2014, making it the world’s most-visited country.
2. France is the largest country in the EU, and known as ‘the hexagon’. With an area of 551,000 sq km it’s almost a fifth of the EU’s total area, and due to its six-sided shape France is sometimes referred to as l’hexagone.
3. The French Army was the first to use camouflage in 1915 (World War I). The word camouflage came from the French verb ‘to make up for the stage’. Guns and vehicles were painted by artists called camofleurs.
4. France was the first country in the world to ban supermarkets from throwing away or destroying unsold food. Since February 2016, shops must donate wastage to food banks or charities.
5. Europe’s highest mountain is in the French Alps. Mont Blanc, at 4,810m, takes an arduous 10 to 12 hours to climb to the summit. Alternatively, you can take a leisurely 20-minute trip up on Europe’s highest cable car on the nearby Aiguille du Midi to get a brilliant view of Mont Blanc.
6. The Louvre Museum in Paris was the most visited museum in the world in 2014.
With an amazing 9.3 million visitors, it received almost the same amount of people as the population of Sweden.
7. The world’s first artificial heart transplant and face transplant both took place in France. The heart transplant occurred in December 2013 at the Georges Pompidou Hospital in Paris. French surgeons were also the first to perform a face transplant in 2005.
8. Totalling around 29,000km, the French rail network is the second largest in Europe (after Germany) and the ninth biggest in the world.
9. Paris Gare du Nord is Europe’s busiest railway station. And by far, with some 190 million passengers passing through each year.
10. France produces nearly a billion tons of cheese a year in around 1,200 different varieties.
11. The French eat around 30,000 tonnes of snails a year.
