France; Monaco (France); and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland--part: Guernsey and Jersey

How is the land laid out?

Crudely France is hexagonal. Side one, in the northeast, is the land between the North Sea and the Rhin¹ River and cutting across the Ardennes hills. The second side starts by following the Rhin until it turns east. Parallel to the river are the forested Vosges Hills. The second side continues by following the Jura and Alpes² mountains. The taller range has five peaks that top 4000 meters including Mount Blanc,³ and ends with cliffs at the Mediterranean Sea. The third irregular side fronts that sea and includes the mouths of the Rhône river, which flows north to south perpendicular to the coast. Its valley separates the Alpine highlands to the east from the Massif Central. These western highlands are bounded near the Rhône by the Cevennes Mountains, consisting mostly of limestone barrens. The fourth side also follows a formidable range, the Pyrénées which, while shorter than the Alpes, contain no easy passes, and so quite effectively separate the Iberian Peninsula from France. The fifth side bends northwest from its midpoint near the mouth of the Gironde. Southerly it marks the western edge of the Garonne Basin⁴ along the Gulf of Gascogne.⁵ More northerly the fifth side and the western part of the sixth side enclose the Armoricain⁶ Massif, low hills that taper to a peninsula and end in a rugged sea coast. The remainder of the sixth side continues northeast along the Manche⁷ and the Pas de, that is Straits of, Calais⁸ to the North Sea. This last stretch is the coast for France's second basin, named for the capital and including the Seine River.

UNESCO honors part of the Pyrénées, Mount Perdu, as a World Heritage Site.

Tourist attractions outside cities include Chamonix-Mont-Blanc and the Gorge du Verdon.⁹

Map

Who lives there?

More than nineteen out of twenty speak French as their first language; almost everyone else can speak it. Similarly about nine in ten are formally Roman Catholic Christians, with the majority of the remainder being non-religious but with Catholic ancesters. The only metropolitan area with over ten million residents is Paris. See a list of French cities.

Tourist attractions outside cities include Saint-Tropez.⁹

There is an important natural gas field near Lacq.¹⁶

The philosopher and mathemetician, René Descartes, was born in France; he did his important work in Holland. Other mathemeticians are mentioned under the cities where they were born or flourished.

Who was there before?

Humans arrived here not too long after leaving Africa and co-existed with Neanderthals until the end of the Ice Ages. Probably the oldest linguistic group still around comprises the Basques,¹⁷ descendents of speakers of Aquitainian, and once spoken throughout southwestern France and beyond. Next came speakers of Gaulish dialects, part of the Continental Celtic dialect group that stretched from today's France to Turkey. The early Gauls were guided by a priest class, the Druids, communicated to the under world through sacred pits, and put Lug,¹⁸ a fierce god of magic, at the head of their pantheon. Punic and Greek speakers urbanized the Mediterranean coast but left no traces on modern language or religion. The Roman republic conquered Gaul and made Latin the language of the elite. German speakers invaded and eventually conquered the province, and in this milieux French evolved from Latin, although the language's name comes from German. Religion also changed. Although the Roman's original religion vanished, their later religion--Christianity as defined by the former imperial capital--gradually replaced the religions of the Celts and Germans, including the Arian Christianity favored by many of the later German invaders. Religious history thereafter is only punctuated by the temporary and disputed relocation of the papacy to Avignon, the terrible religious wars between Protestants (Huguenots) and Catholics in the sixteenth century and the bloody struggle between secular statists and traditional Catholics during the Revolution.

Cliffs within commune of Èze, France

Around the Area

north
northeast
east
east, from the southeast
southeast
southwest
west
northwest
northwest from Pas de Calais department

Footnotes

1. Rhein in German and Rhine in English.
2. Alpen in German, Alpi in Italian and Alps in English.
3. Translates as White Mountain in English.
4. Usually called the Basin of Acquitaine by the French.
5. The Bay of Biscay in English. Biscay refers to the Basques.
6. Armorican in English.
7. English Channel in English. The Manche means the Channel in French.
8. Straits of Dover in English.
9. http://www.touropia.com/tourist-attractions-in-france/, accessed 2/9/2015.
10. Within France the noted belfries are: those of the city halls in Armentières, Bailleul, Bergues, Comines, Douai, Dunkerque, Lille, Loos, Aire-sur-la-Lys, Arras, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais, Hesdin and Abbeville; that of St. Martin's Church in Cambrai; that of St. Eligius Church in Dunkerque; that of the former Municipal Hall (at present the tourist information center) in Doullens; that of the remaining city gate in Lucheux; and those in Gravelines, Béthune, Amiens, Rue and Saint-Riquier.
11. Among the places the canal goes through are the cities of Toulouse, Carcasonne, Narbonne, Béziers and Agde.
12. These are: the citadels at Arras, Besançon (and Fort Griffon), Blaye (and forts there or nearby), Mont-Louis and Saint-Martin-de-Ré; the city walls at Besançon, Briançon (and other features), Mont-Louis, Saint-Martin-de-Ré and Ville franche-de-Conflent (and other features there); the Tour dorée at Camaret-sur-Mer; the Ville neuve at Longwy; the Place forte at Mont-Dauphin; the Ville neuve to Breisach (and Breisach itself in Deutschland); and the watchtowers on Saint-Vaast-la-Houge and Tatihou.
13. The valley includes the cities of Angers, Saumur, Tours, Joué-lès-Tours, Blois and Orléans.
14. This consists of present or former cathedrals in Périgueux, Bazas, Bordeaux, Agen, Bayonne, Le Puy-en-Velay (and the Hôtel-Dieu Saint-Jacques there), Bourges (also a separate World Heritage Site), Saint-Lizier (plus other features there), Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges, Auch, Cahors and Amiens (also a separate World Heritage Site); churches or collegial or parochial churches in Saint-Avit-Sénieur, La Suave-Majeure, Soudac-sur-Mer, Aire dur-l'Adour, L'Hôpital-Saint-Blaise, Oloron-Sainte-Marie, Clermont-Ferrand, La Charité-sur-Loire, Asquins, Neuvy-Saint-Sepulchre, Châlons-en-Champagne, Paris, Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, Audressein, Valcabrèe, La Romieu, Rocamadour, Gavarnie, Jézeau, Orudis-Cotdoussan, Rabastens, Folleville, Compiègne, Saintes, Melle and Aulnay; basilicas in Bourdeaux, L'Épine, Comminges (and a chapel there), Toulouse (also the Hôtel-Dieu Saint Jacques there) and Poitiers; present or former abbeys or abbatial churches in Le Buisson-de-Cadouin, La Sauve-Majeure, Sorde-l'Abbaye, Saint-Sever, Vézelaly, Saint-Guihem-le-Désert, Saint-Giles-du-Gard, Conques, Moissac and Sant-Jean-d'Angély; a gate in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port; Mont-Saint-Michel (also a separate World Heritage Site); bridges between Aniane and Jean-de-Fos, and between Beaumont-sur-l'Osse and Larressingle, and at Estaing, Saint-Chély-d'Aubrac and Cahors; a dolmen at Gréalou; hospitals or hospices at Figeac, Aragnouet (also a chapel there) and Pons; a bell tower in Mimizan; and the routes between Nasbinals and Saint Chély-d-Aubrac, between Saint-Côme-d'Olt, between Montredon and Figeac, between Faycelles and Cajarc, between Bach and Cahors, between Lectoure and Condom, and between Aroue and Ostobat.
15. There are over a hundred spots many of which are within the Douai-Lens-Béthune-Valenciennes metropolitan area. Some are in cities such as Broay-la-Buissieè (also known as Broay-en-Artois), Béthune, Liévin, Loos (in the Lille-Kortrijk metropolitan area), Lens, Henin-Beaumont, Douai and Valenciennes.
16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_gas_fields, accessed in February, 2015.
17. Eukara in Basque.
18. The god's name is preserved in Lyon's old name, Lugdunum.
19. The locations are: Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux at Clairvaux-les-Lacs; Lac de Chalain, rive occidentale, at Marigny, Doucier and Fontenu; Lac d'Aiguebelette, zone sud, at Aiguebelette-le-Lac and Saint-Alban-de-Montbel; the Baie de Grésine at Brison-Saint-Innocent; the Baie de Châtillon at Chindrieux; Hautecombe at Saint-Pierre-de-Curtille; the Littoral de Tresserve; the Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman; Les Marais de Saint-Jorioz; Le Crêt de Chatillon at Sévrier; and the Secteur des Mongets at Sévrier and Saint-Jorioz.