Fun facts about France

Get fun facts about France, ranging from the geography of France to the history of France.

France touches three major bodies of water: the Atlantic Ocean (Bay of Biscay), the Mediterranean Sea and the English Channel.
France has almost 3,000 miles (4,668 kilometers) of coastline.
There are seven main mountain ranges in France: Pyrenees, Alps, Auvergne, Vosges, Jura, Morvan and Corsica.
Mont Blanc, in the French Alps, is the highest point in Western Europe at (4,810 m)
European France borders eight countries: Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Germany, Spain and Switzerland, in addition to Monaco and Andorra.

European France is divided into 17 regions (reorganized in 2016) and its overseas territories comprise four other regions.
European France consists of 633,187 square kilometers (244,474 square miles)
France is the largest country in the EU, known as the ‘hexagon’ due to its shape
The Millau Bridge in southern France is the tallest bridge in the world and the tallest structure in France. At its highest point, it stands 343 m (1,125 ft) above the ground, higher than the Eiffel Tower. It is 2,460 meters long.
Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in Europe and the world, with around 190 million passengers a year. It is also one of the oldest in the world: it was opened in 1846, although it was replaced by a new railway station in 1860.

France’s population is 66.4 million (2015).
The population of Paris is 2.2 million, the largest metropolitan Paris has 12.4 million people.
The population is 13% of the European Union (2015)
France has the highest birth rate in Europe (2014) with an average of women giving birth 30 years.
France had 83.7 million visitors in 2014 according to the World Tourism Organization, making it the most visited country in the world.

Eleanor of Aquitaine’s marriage to the future English king Henry II in May 1152 led to British rule by France for some three centuries.
France was the official language in England from 1066 to 1362.
Much of southwestern France was not even part of France as recently as 1453, the end of the Hundred Years War when England surrendered all of its French territory except Calais.

The French were the first to officially adopt the metric system in 1793 after the French Revolution to replace the old system that had almost 400 different ways of measuring land areas in France. The idea of a rational system based on measuring decimal, using multiples of 10, however had been around since the ^17th century.
The international relief Mayday signal used by ships and aircraft comes from the French version of anglicada M’aidez, meaning ‘help me’.
In fact, all-American fabric denim came from Nimes, which was a textile-producing city. Nîmes fabric was exported to the US southern state in the ^19th century to make clothes for the slaves.

The French claim that shepherds were first used by shepherds in the swampy Landes so that they could move through the wetlands, and also see sheep from afar.
The French army officially used camouflage by forming a camouflage corps led by Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scévola in 1915. They employed artists called camouflages to create covers for weapons and more. ‘ Camoufle r’ is a Parisian slang that means to disguise.
The French invented canning when pastry chef Nicolas Appert began using sealed glass jars placed in boiling water to preserve food in 1809. Later, another Frenchman, Pierre Durand, began using cans.

Braille was developed by Louis Braille in 1824
Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier pioneered hot air balloon flights in 1783.
The bra was invented by Herminie Cadolle in 1889. She opened a lingerie workshop and exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1900 with great success.
In 1984, the French started the Minitel service used by people to pay their bills and shop from their own homes.
In February 2016, France banned supermarkets from throwing away or destroying unsold food. Now stores must donate their food waste to food banks or charities.

The French have around 400 different types of cheeses. These are grouped into different categories and there can be many varieties within each group, which is why many say there are around 1,000 different types.
In 1962, French President Charles de Gaulle despaired: “How can you govern a country that has 246 varieties of cheese?”
The French eat an average of 500 snails each year (apparently)
The French consume 11.2 billion glasses of wine a year.

So there are some facts to share at the holidays. And it’s a very shortened version!

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Edited by Mary Anne Evans