1.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with 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, 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 and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, 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, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, 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 succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. 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 colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
2.
Vesoul
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Vesoul is a commune in the Haute-Saône department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté located in eastern France. It is the most populated municipality of the department with 15,920 inhabitants in 2009, and is the seventh largest city in Franche-Comté. The same year, the Urban community of Vesoul which covers 19 municipalities together had 34,055 inhabitants while the Urban area of Vesoul which includes 78 municipalities, had 59,244 inhabitants and its urban area is the fifth largest Franche-Comté. Its inhabitants are known in French as Vésuliens, nicknamed the Nice of the East, the reputation of Vesoul-based primarily on the song Vesoul by Jacques Brel and the Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema. Its 16,000 inhabitants, account Vesoul 2000 students and 8000 licensed sport, the city has received many labels and names that reflect the investigation brings to life Vesoul common. At the end of the Middle Ages, the city experienced a period of difficulties as plagues, epidemics. The town is the capital of the department, Vesoul is first mentioned in a document dated 899. That document speaks about an elevation with a fortified watchtower, the document speaks about Castrum Vesulium. Castrum is a fortification, and Vesulium has the syllable ves which meant hill or mountain in a language that was spoken before the Celts, today, there is a castle that forms the centre of the city. The first houses were built inside the walls of the castle, newcomers who found no place settled outside the city walls, on the flanks of the hill. In 1814, after the fall of the empire, a state was created. The principality was that of Free County, of the Vosges, today, one of the main factories of PSA Peugeot Citroën is near Vesoul. Vesoul is located in the center of the Haute-Saône and is equidistant from the cities of the department. It is located at the intersection of highways Road 19 and Road 57 and it is to 48 kilometres of Besançon,82 kilometres of Epinal,30 kilometres of Luxeuil-les-Bains,32 kilometres of Lure,64 kilometres of Belfort,59 kilometres of Gray and 105 kilometres of Dijon. The largest city near Vesoul is Besançon, lac de Vesoul - Vaivre Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema The first public library of Vesoul opened in 1771. The abbé Bardenet, superior of the Saint-Esprit hospital in Besançon, the collections became a lot larger with the Revolution. At that time, the revolutionaries took the books from the monasteries of the town, around 20,000 books were added to the library this way, including some 11th century manuscripts. The Mayors office was responsible for keeping the books, in 1981, the municipality decided to build a new building to encourage the public to read
3.
Estuary
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An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a zone between river environments and maritime environments. They are subject both to marine influences—such as tides, waves, and the influx of saline water—and to riverine influences—such as flows of fresh water and sediment. The inflows of sea water and fresh water provide high levels of nutrients both in the water column and in sediment, making estuaries among the most productive natural habitats in the world. Most existing estuaries formed during the Holocene epoch with the flooding of river-eroded or glacially scoured valleys when the sea began to rise about 10. Estuaries are typically classified according to their geomorphological features or to water-circulation patterns, the banks of many estuaries are amongst the most heavily populated areas of the world, with about 60% of the worlds population living along estuaries and the coast. The word estuary is derived from the Latin word aestuarium meaning tidal inlet of the sea, there have been many definitions proposed to describe an estuary. However, this definition excludes a number of water bodies such as coastal lagoons. This broad definition also includes fjords, lagoons, river mouths, an estuary is a dynamic ecosystem having a connection to the open sea through which the sea water enters with the rhythm of the tides. The sea water entering the estuary is diluted by the water flowing from rivers. The pattern of dilution varies between different estuaries and depends on the volume of water, the tidal range. Drowned river valleys are known as coastal plain estuaries. In places where the sea level is rising relative to the land, sea water progressively penetrates into river valleys and this is the most common type of estuary in temperate climates. Well-studied estuaries include the Severn Estuary in the United Kingdom and the Ems Dollard along the Dutch-German border, the width-to-depth ratio of these estuaries is typically large, appearing wedge-shaped in the inner part and broadening and deepening seaward. Water depths rarely exceed 30 m, examples of this type of estuary in the U. S. are the Hudson River, Chesapeake Bay, and Delaware Bay along the Mid-Atlantic coast, and Galveston Bay and Tampa Bay along the Gulf Coast. They are relatively common in tropical and subtropical locations and these estuaries are semi-isolated from ocean waters by barrier beaches. Formation of barrier beaches partially encloses the estuary, with only narrow inlets allowing contact with the ocean waters, bar-built estuaries typically develop on gently sloping plains located along tectonically stable edges of continents and marginal sea coasts. They are extensive along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the U. S. in areas with active coastal deposition of sediments, barrier beaches form in shallow water and are generally parallel to the shoreline, resulting in long, narrow estuaries
4.
French Revolution
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Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history, the causes of the French Revolution are complex and are still debated among historians. Following the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War, the French government was deeply in debt, Years of bad harvests leading up to the Revolution also inflamed popular resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the clergy and the aristocracy. Demands for change were formulated in terms of Enlightenment ideals and contributed to the convocation of the Estates-General in May 1789, a central event of the first stage, in August 1789, was the abolition of feudalism and the old rules and privileges left over from the Ancien Régime. The next few years featured political struggles between various liberal assemblies and right-wing supporters of the intent on thwarting major reforms. The Republic was proclaimed in September 1792 after the French victory at Valmy, in a momentous event that led to international condemnation, Louis XVI was executed in January 1793. External threats closely shaped the course of the Revolution, internally, popular agitation radicalised the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins. Large numbers of civilians were executed by revolutionary tribunals during the Terror, after the Thermidorian Reaction, an executive council known as the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795. The rule of the Directory was characterised by suspended elections, debt repudiations, financial instability, persecutions against the Catholic clergy, dogged by charges of corruption, the Directory collapsed in a coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799. The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution, almost all future revolutionary movements looked back to the Revolution as their predecessor. The values and institutions of the Revolution dominate French politics to this day, the French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity. Globally, the Revolution accelerated the rise of republics and democracies and it became the focal point for the development of all modern political ideologies, leading to the spread of liberalism, radicalism, nationalism, socialism, feminism, and secularism, among many others. The Revolution also witnessed the birth of total war by organising the resources of France, historians have pointed to many events and factors within the Ancien Régime that led to the Revolution. Over the course of the 18th century, there emerged what the philosopher Jürgen Habermas called the idea of the sphere in France. A perfect example would be the Palace of Versailles which was meant to overwhelm the senses of the visitor and convince one of the greatness of the French state and Louis XIV. Starting in the early 18th century saw the appearance of the sphere which was critical in that both sides were active. In France, the emergence of the public sphere outside of the control of the saw the shift from Versailles to Paris as the cultural capital of France. In the 1750s, during the querelle des bouffons over the question of the quality of Italian vs, in 1782, Louis-Sébastien Mercier wrote, The word court no longer inspires awe amongst us as in the time of Louis XIV
5.
Haute-Marne
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Haute-Marne is a department in the northeast of France named after the Marne River. Haute-Marne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4,1790 and it was created from parts of the former provinces of Champagne, Burgundy, Lorraine and Franche-Comté. In March 1814 the departmental prefecture, Chaumont, was the witness to the end of the First Empire. On 1 March, Prussia, Russia, the United Kingdom and Austria signed an accord forbidding any individual peace deal with Napoleon I, during World War II, Haute-Marne was partitioned under German occupation. The canal which runs from the Marne to the Saône served as a border, the east was a reserved zone, intended for the creation of a new German state, whereas to the west would be the traditional occupied zone. Haute-Marne was finally liberated by the Allies, in the form of the division of General Leclerc, Haute-Marne is part of the region of Grand Est and is surrounded by the departments of Meuse, Vosges, Haute-Saône, Côte-dOr, Aube, and Marne. The nearest big cities are Paris, Nancy, Strasbourg, Basel, the highest mountain is Haut-du-Sac, in the Langres Plateau, in the southwest of the department, which rises to a height of 516 m. The lowest points at 117m are found on the plains of Perthois, the department is named after the Marne River, whose source is near Langres. This river covers 120 kilometres within the department, the department is to the east of the Parisian basin, and is characterised by a concentric sequence of cliff faces of varying geological origin, oriented northeast/southwest. The Haute-Marne department is not a department but this peaceful territory has numerous interesting places to present. Indeed, the department was one of the most powerful in French history thanks to metallurgy economy and was a land of confrontations along history, thus, among other examples, the French Wars of Religion began with the Massacre of Vassy in the north of the Haute-Marne department. Following this event, open military conflicts across France Kingdom began, the Edict of Nantes is the consequence of this period
6.
Vosges (department)
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Vosges is an eastern department of France named after the Vosges. It consists of 17 cantons and 515 communes, of which 242 are rural, including the commune of Domrémy-la-Pucelle, where Joan of Arc was born. Joan of Arc was born in the village of Domrémy, then in the French part of the duchy of Bar, or Barrois mouvant, the part of the duchy lying east of the Meuse was part of the Holy Roman Empire. The duchy of Bar later became part of the province of Lorraine, the village of Domrémy was renamed Domrémy-la-Pucelle in honour of Joan. The Vosges department is one of the original 83 departments of France and it was made of territories that had been part of the province of Lorraine. In German it is referred to as Vogesen, in 1793 the independent principality of Salm-Salm, enclosed inside the Vosges department, was annexed to France and incorporated into Vosges. In 1795 the area of Schirmeck was detached from the Bas-Rhin department, the Vosges department had now an area of 6,127 km² which it kept until 1871. In 1794 the Vosges was the site of a battle between the forces of Revolutionary France and the Allied Coalition. The Place des Vosges in Paris was so renamed in 1799 when the department became the first to pay the new Revolutionary taxes, the area annexed on May 18,1871 corresponded to the canton of Schirmeck and the northern half of the canton of Saales. Schirmeck and Saales had been part of Alsace. These territories, along with the rest of Alsace and the territories of Lorraine. The area of the Vosges department was reduced to its current 5,874 km². In 1919, with the victory in the World War I. However, Schirmeck and Saales were not returned to the Vosges department, an ill-fated Special Air Service mission called Operation Loyton took place in the Vosges forests in 1944. Various military cemeteries are located in the department the largest of which is the Le Quéquement American Cemetery in Dinozé and it was built by the American 45th Infantry Division in September 1944 and completed in 1959. 5,255 soldiers killed in action during fighting in France, the Vosges, the largest cities/towns are Épinal, Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, Gérardmer and Remiremont. A total population of 378,830 inhabitants was recorded in the 2011 census, the population is split with 70% in urban areas and 30% living in rural districts. Roughly 47% of the department is covered by woodlands and forests, the remaining 13% is commercial, industrial and residential
7.
Territoire de Belfort
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The Territoire de Belfort is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of eastern France. Its departmental code is 90, and its prefecture is Belfort, there is a single arrondissement, which is sub-divided into 9 cantons and thence into 102 communes. The administrative district Territoire de Belfort was created under the terms of the 1871 Treaty of Frankfurt, the German Empire annexed almost all of Alsace, but the French were able to negotiate retention of the Territoire de Belfort which thereby was separated from the rest of Alsace. There were three reasons for this exceptional treatment, The population in and around Belfort was French-speaking. Belfort had demonstrated heroic resistance, under Colonel Pierre Denfert-Rochereau, to the German invasion, belforts left-wing Catholic Deputy Émile Keller now conducted a similarly forceful political campaign in the National Assembly. He argued that ceding heroic Belfort to Germany after the war would be unthinkable, Belfort, on steep ground and lined up with the Vosges Mountains, would form part of a natural line of defence for Frances newly imposed eastern frontier. This encouraged the politicians in Paris to hold out for its retention, the Germans agreed primarily because the Prussian military officiers indicated that leaving it in France would give Germany a more defensible border. After retaining its status as a territoire for just over half a century. France had recovered Alsace three years earlier, but the decision was not to reintegrate Belfort into its former department. When the regions of France were created, Belfort was not included in the region of Alsace, the departmental income of the department in 2008 had increased to €18259 which was a little below the overall national figure. The averaged figure for the Territoire de Belfort masked relatively large disparities such as, in particular, in 2006 the department recorded a population of 144,600. Of these, slightly more than 50,000 live in the commune of Belfort itself, four principal phases can be identified in the population trends during the two centuries between 1801 and 2000. The period from 1800 to 1872 was marked by economic development. However, the epidemic which in 1851 arose from increasing urbanisation, along with a more general economic slow-down. Between 1803 and 1872 the recorded population increased from 37,558 to 56,781, the population increase and the economic development were at their most intense in the Belfort conglomeration itself. Population declined, having slipped to 86,648 in 1946, after 1945 the region became a focus for industrial growth, population levels followed the same rising trend, to stand at 131,999 in 1982. Nevertheless, as in parts of France, from about 1980 it was clear that the economic crisis of the 1970s was having a lasting effect in slowing the pace of expansion. Geographers might contend that Belfort lies on the ridge that divides two regions of France, but before 1870 it was part of Alsace
8.
Doubs
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Doubs is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of eastern France named after the Doubs River. As early as the 13th century, inhabitants of the northern two-thirds of Doubs spoke Franc-Comtois, residents of the southern third of Doubs spoke a dialect of the Arpitan language. Both languages co-existed with French, the language of law and commerce. They are both still spoken today but not on a daily basis, Doubs was important as a portal to Switzerland through the pass at Joux. Many famous people, including Mirabeau, Toussaint Louverture and Heinrich von Kleist, were imprisoned in the Château de Joux, Doubs is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from part of the province of Franche-Comté. In 1793, the republic of Mandeure was annexed by France, however, the commune of Le Cerneux-Péquignot was annexed by the Canton of Neuchâtel under the terms of the 1814 Treaty of Paris, and since remained Swiss territory. Between the defeat of France at the Battle of Waterloo and November 1818, victor Hugo, Gustave Courbet, and Auguste and Louis Lumière are among the famous people born in Doubs. The department is dominated by the Jura mountains, which rise east of Besançon, the President of the General Council is Claude Jeannerot of the Socialist Party. The inhabitants of the department are called Doubistes, the Doubs department is at the same time the greenest and the most industrialized in France. It is the birthplace of the automotive manufacturer Peugeot, the castle of Joux and Besançon are important tourist destinations
