Francia

"Francia (en francés, France), oficialmente República Francesa (République française), es un país soberano, miembro de la Unión Europea, constituido en Estado social y democrático de derecho y cuya forma de gobierno es la república semipresidencialista. Su territorio, con capital en París, se extiende sobre una superficie total de 675 417 km² y en 2015 contaba con 66,3 millones de habitantes, 64,2 en la Francia metropolitana y 2,1 en los territorios de ultramar. El territorio de Francia, y su parte metropolitana o continental, se ubica en Europa Occidental, donde limita, al sur, con el mar Mediterráneo, Mónaco (4,4 km) e Italia (488 km); al suroeste, con España (623 km), Andorra (56,6 km) y el mar Cantábrico; al oeste, con el océano Atlántico; al norte, con el canal de la Mancha, Reino Unido (22,6 m., en medio del túnel submarino que los une), el mar del Norte y Bélgica (620 km), y al este, con Luxemburgo (73 km), Alemania (451 km) y Suiza (573 km). Su territorio insular europeo comprende la isla de Córcega, en el Mediterráneo occidental, y diversos archipiélagos costeros en el océano Atlántico. En América, es territorio de Francia la Guayana Francesa, que limita con Brasil (673 km) y Surinam (510 km), y las islas y archipiélagos de Martinica, Guadalupe, San Bartolomé, San Martín y San Pedro y Miquelón. En el océano Índico posee las islas de Mayotte y de Reunión, así como los archipiélagos de la Polinesia Francesa, Wallis y Futuna y Nueva Caledonia en el océano Pacífico. Son territorios deshabitados de Francia el atolón de Isla Clipperton, en el Pacífico oriental, y las denominadas Tierras Australes y Antárticas Francesas. Francia es la sexta economía mundial con una muy elevada difusión cultural en el contexto internacional. Es miembro del G8, de la zona euro y del espacio Schengen, y alberga a muchas de las más importantes empresas multinacionales, líderes en diversos segmentos de la industria y del sector primario, además de que es el primer destino turístico mundial, con 83 millones de visitantes extranjeros por año (7 % del PIB).Francia, donde se redactó la Declaración de los Derechos del Hombre y del Ciudadano de 1789, es miembro fundador de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas y uno de los cinco miembros permanentes de su Consejo de Seguridad. Francia alberga las sedes del Consejo de Europa y del Parlamento Europeo, ambas en Estrasburgo, y las de la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económico y de la Unesco, en París. Es también una de las ocho potencias nucleares reconocidas y miembro de la OTAN. Durante el siglo XIX, el país fue una potencia colonial, y durante mucho tiempo el idioma francés fue la principal lengua de la diplomacia. Aún hoy, es una de las lenguas con mayor proyección, y la cultura y la civilización francesas forman el nexo de unión de los países de la Francofonía. Además, el país era miembro de la disuelta Unión Latina."

"France (French: [fs]), officially the French Republic (French: République française [epyblik fsz]), is a transcontinental country comprising territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or 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. Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and has a total population of 66.7 million. It is a unitary semi-presidential republic with the capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, when the Germanic Franks conquered the region and formed the Kingdom of France. France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years' War (1337 to 1453) strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would be the second largest in the world. The 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). France became Europe's dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV. In the late 18th century, the French Revolution overthrew the absolute monarchy, established one of modern history's earliest republics, and saw the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. In the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. France was a major participant in the First World War, from which it emerged victorious, and was one of the Allied Powers in the Second World War, but came under occupation by the Axis Powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War. The Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic and military connections with France. France has long been a global centre of art, science, and philosophy. It hosts Europe's fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, the most of any country in the world. France is a developed country with the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, and human development. France remains a great power in the world, being a founding member of the United Nations, where it serves as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and a founding and leading member state of the European Union (EU). It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and La Francophonie."