France

The land of the Eiffel Tower, art and cuisine

France is the most visited country in the world (100 million tourists a year)! Paris has the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre (the Mona Lisa) and Notre-Dame. The French make 1,000 kinds of cheese and delicious croissants. Mont Blanc is the highest peak in the Alps. The French helped invent the aeroplane, cinema and the bicycle. 'The Little Prince' was written by a French author.

Capital: Paris. Language: French.

The French Republic covers 551,695 km² (the largest in the EU) with 68 million people — 'the Hexagon' — and with overseas territories (Guiana, Réunion) spans 13 time zones, the most in the world. Nature: the Alps (Mont Blanc 4,808 m), the Pyrenees, the Loire Valley, the Côte d'Azur, Normandy. History: the Lascaux cave (17,000 years), Gaul and Rome, Charlemagne (800), the Hundred Years' War (Joan of Arc), Louis XIV (Versailles), the 1789 Revolution ('Liberty, equality, fraternity', the metric system), Napoleon, the Fifth Republic since 1958. Culture: the Louvre (the world's most visited museum), Impressionism, cinema (the Lumière brothers, 1895), fashion (Paris), cuisine (UNESCO), the Tour de France. Science: Pasteur, Curie, Descartes. Economy: 7th in the world, Airbus, the TGV (1981), nuclear power (70%), wine, cosmetics. 52 UNESCO sites. With Uzbekistan: the 'Samarkand' exhibition at the Louvre (2022), French archaeologists in Termez and Bukhara.

Fun facts

• France welcomes 100 million tourists a year — the most in the world.
• The metre and kilogram were invented in France after the 1789 revolution.
• France has over 1,000 kinds of cheese.