Political World Wall Map, French Language - 40.75" x 27" Paper

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From the 11th century, the House of Plantagenet, the rulers of the County of Anjou, succeeded in establishing its dominion over the surrounding provinces of Maine and Touraine, then progressively built an "empire" that spanned from England to the Pyrenees and covering half of modern France. Tensions between the kingdom of France and the Plantagenet empire would last a hundred years, until Philip II of France conquered, between 1202 and 1214, most of the continental possessions of the empire, leaving England and Aquitaine to the Plantagenets. Administrative (diplomatic), cultural, some educational, working language in medicine, science, and law [16] [17] Metropolitan France covers 551,500 square kilometres (212,935sqmi), [87] the largest among European Union members. [19] France's total land area, with its overseas departments and territories (excluding Adélie Land), is 643,801km 2 (248,573sqmi), 0.45% of the total land area on Earth. France possesses a wide variety of landscapes, from coastal plains in the north and west to mountain ranges of the Alps in the southeast, the Massif Central in the south-central and Pyrenees in the southwest. 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 Germanic 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 becoming the Kingdom of France in 987. In the High Middle Ages, France was a powerful but decentralized feudal kingdom, but 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, the French Renaissance saw culture flourish and a French colonial empire rise. [15] 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. [16] A traditional totora reed raft on Lake Titicaca, seen from Sun Island, Bolivia. Lake Titicaca is the largest lake in South America and known as the "highest navigable lake" in the world.

There are lots more fantastic resources available you can use to complement this poster. You can use more display items to teach your children more about the French-speaking countries, worksheets to help your children with their French and lots more. Here are a few suggestions which you might find useful:Your children could pretend they have taken a lovely trip to France and write some postcards. These postcards include some famous French landmarks. These would be fun to take home to show family or friends!

Source gives area of metropolitan France as 551,500 km 2 (212,900 sq mi) and lists overseas regions separately, whose areas sum to 89,179 km 2 (34,432 sq mi). Adding these give the total shown here for the entire French Republic. The World Factbook reports the total as 643,801 km 2 (248,573 sq mi). France expanded until it reached natural bounderies seas with mediterranean, gascony golfe and the Channel ( french élite fought a lot against the plantagenet/lancastrian for that ), mountains with the Alps, Pyrénées and low mountains Vosges, Jura, Ardenne as its shown in the detailed map of France. France argued with Germany concerning the Rhine, French wanted the left bank of the Rhine and German considered that the Vosges mountain should be the frontier, but obviously having the Alsatian Rhine access is as well an economic asset as a good military frontier for France.Under the wars of Louis XV (r. 1715–1774), France lost New France and most of its Indian possessions after its defeat in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). Its European territory kept growing, however, with notable acquisitions such as Lorraine (1766) and Corsica (1770). An unpopular king, Louis XV's weak rule, his ill-advised financial, political and military decisions—as well as the decadence of his court—discredited the monarchy, which arguably paved the way for the French Revolution 15 years after his death. [59] The Carolingian dynasty ruled France until 987, when Hugh Capet, Duke of France and Count of Paris, was crowned King of the Franks. [45] His descendants—the Capetians, the House of Valois and the House of Bourbon—progressively unified the country through wars and dynastic inheritance into the Kingdom of France, which was fully declared in 1190 by Philip II of France ( Philippe Auguste). Later kings would expand their directly possessed domaine royal to cover over half of modern continental France by the 15th century, including most of the north, centre and west of France. During this process, the royal authority became more and more assertive, centred on a hierarchically conceived society distinguishing nobility, clergy, and commoners. The most populous island with 145 million inhabitants is Java (Indonesia), more than half of the nation's population. The French education system is highly centralized, with a focus on academic excellence and rigorous testing. Education is mandatory from ages six to sixteen, and students are required to attend school for 180 days a year. From the 16th to the 19th century, France was responsible for 11% of the transatlantic slave trade, [55] second only to Great Britain during the 18th century. [56] While the state began condoning the practice with letters patent in the 1630s, Louis XIII only formalized this authorization more generally in 1642 in the last year of his reign. By the mid-18th century, Nantes had become the principal French slave-trading port. [55] Louis XIV, the "Sun King", was the absolute monarch of France and made France the leading European power.

The answer for this question varies from source to source. According to United Nations Organisations, there are 195 countries in the world. Out of which 2 countries that are non-member observer states: the Holy See (Vatican City) and the State of Palestine. The Pacific Ocean is, with an area of approximately 165 million km², the largest body of water; it lies between the Americas (North and South America) on the east and Asia and Australasia on the west. It is divided by the equator into the North Pacific and the South Pacific oceans. Its northern and southern boundaries are the two polar circles. See also: France in the Middle Ages Joan of Arc led the French Army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453), which paved the way for the final victory.According to ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) Country Codes Standard, there are 249 countries in the world out of which 194 are independent. France has a mixed market economy, characterised by sizeable government involvement, and economic diversity. For roughly two centuries, the French economy has consistently ranked among the ten largest globally; it is currently the world's ninth-largest by purchasing power parity, the seventh-largest by nominal GDP, and the second-largest in the European Union by both metrics. [176] France is considered an economic power, with membership in the Group of Seven leading industrialised countries, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the Group of Twenty largest economies.

France is the world's tenth-largest producer of electricity. [206] Électricité de France (EDF), which is majority-owned by the French government, is the country's main producer and distributor of electricity, and one of the world's largest electric utility companies, ranking third in revenue globally. [207] In 2018, EDF produced around one-fifth of the European Union's electricity, primarily from nuclear power. [208] As of 2021, France was the biggest energy exporter in Europe, mostly to the U.K. and Italy, [209] and the largest net exporter of electricity in the world. [209] Pretty remote are the Marquesas Islands (part of French Polynesia). The archipelago is located in the South Pacific Ocean, 3,725 km southeast of Hawaii. The nearest mainland is 5,000 km away at the southwestern coast of Mexico; the second-nearest significant land is the east coast of New Zealand, 5,230 km away. While French is not an official language in these countries, it is widely used in administration and many professional sectors, as well as being highly influential as a cultural language in the local society and has certain privileges in the education system.With an estimated January 2023 population of 68,042,591 people, [8] France is the 20th most populous country in the world, the third-most populous in Europe (after Russia and Germany), and the second most populous in the European Union (after Germany). Under the doctrine of Dirigisme, the government historically played a major role in the economy; policies such as indicative planning and nationalisation are credited for contributing to three decades of unprecedented postwar economic growth known as Trente Glorieuses. At its peak in 1982, the public sector accounted for one-fifth of industrial employment and over four-fifths of the credit market. Beginning in the late 20th century, France loosened regulations and state involvement in the economy, with most leading companies now being privately owned; state ownership now dominates only transportation, defence and broadcasting. [188] Policies aimed at promoting economic dynamism and privatisation have improved France's economic standing globally: it is among the world's 10 most innovative countries in the 2020 Bloomberg Innovation Index, [189] and the 15th most competitive, according to the 2019 Global Competitiveness Report (up two places from 2018). [190] French foreign policy after World War II has been largely shaped by membership in the European Union, of which it was a founding member. Since the 1960s, France has developed close ties with reunified Germany to become the most influential driving force of the EU. [153] In the 1960s, France sought to exclude the British from the European unification process, [154] seeking to build its standing in continental Europe. However, since 1904, France has maintained an " Entente cordiale" with the United Kingdom, and there has been a strengthening of links between the countries, especially militarily. In 600 BC, Ionian Greeks from Phocaea founded the colony of Massalia (present-day Marseille), on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. This makes it France's oldest city. [29] At the same time, some Gallic Celtic tribes penetrated parts of eastern and northern France, gradually spreading through the rest of the country between the 5th and 3rd century BC. [30] The Maison Carrée was a temple of the Gallo-Roman city of Nemausus (present-day Nîmes) and is one of the best-preserved vestiges of the Roman Empire.