France
France the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean, it is bordered by Belgium and Germany to the northeast and Italy to the east, Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic and Indian oceans; the country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nice. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by a Celtic people. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476, who formed the Kingdom of Francia.
The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned Francia into Middle Francia and West Francia. West Francia which became the Kingdom of France in 987 emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages following its victory in the Hundred Years' War. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would become the second largest in the world; the 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Protestants. France became Europe's dominant cultural and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV. In the late 18th century, the French Revolution overthrew the absolute monarchy, established one of modern history's earliest republics, 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 established the First French Empire, his 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 World War I, from which it emerged victorious, was one of the Allies in World War II, but came under occupation by the Axis powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and dissolved in the course of the Algerian War; the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, remains today. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s and retained close economic and military connections with France. France has long been a global centre of art and philosophy, it hosts the world's fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the leading tourist destination, receiving around 83 million foreign visitors annually. France is a developed country with the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP, tenth-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, human development.
France is considered a great power in global affairs, 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 leading member state of the European Union and the Eurozone, a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, La Francophonie. Applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name "France" comes from the Latin "Francia", or "country of the Franks". Modern France is still named today "Francia" in Italian and Spanish, "Frankreich" in German and "Frankrijk" in Dutch, all of which have more or less the same historical meaning. There are various theories as to the origin of the name Frank. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English, it has been suggested that the meaning of "free" was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation.
Another theory is that it is derived from the Proto-Germanic word frankon, which translates as javelin or lance as the throwing axe of the Franks was known as a francisca. However, it has been determined that these weapons were named because of their use by the Franks, not the other way around; the oldest traces of human life in what is now France date from 1.8 million years ago. Over the ensuing millennia, Humans were confronted by a harsh and variable climate, marked by several glacial eras. Early hominids led a nomadic hunter-gatherer life. France has a large number of decorated caves from the upper Palaeolithic era, including one of the most famous and best preserved, Lascaux. At the end of the last glacial period, the climate became milder. After strong demographic and agricultural development between the 4th and 3rd millennia, metallurgy appeared at the end of the 3rd millennium working gold and bronze, iron. France has numerous megalithic sites from the Neolithic period, including the exceptiona
Augnax
Augnax is a commune in the Gers department in southwestern France. Communes of the Gers department INSEE
Gers
The Gers is a department in the Occitanie region in the southwest of France named after the Gers River. Inhabitants are called les Gersois. In the Middle Ages, the Lordship of L'Isle-Jourdain was nearby; the Gers is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Gascony. In 1808 it lost Lavit on its north-eastern side to the newly created department of Tarn-et-Garonne; the culture is agricultural, with great emphasis on the local gastronomical specialties such as: Armagnac brandy, Côtes de Gascogne, Floc de Gascogne, Foie gras, wild mushrooms. Some prominent cultivated crops are corn, colza and grain; the Gascon language is a dialect of Occitan, but it is not spoken. The department is characterised by sleepy bastide villages and rolling hills with the Pyrenees visible to the south. Alexandre Dumas, père created the famous Gersois d'Artagnan, the fourth musketeer of The Three Musketeers. A museum to d'Artagnan is found in the Gersois village of Lupiac.
A horse race at the Auteuil Hippodrome has been named after André Boingnères, a notable local race-horse owner and the successful mayor of Termes-d'Armagnac between 1951 and 1976. The President of the General Council is Philippe Martin of the Socialist Party. Located in southwestern France, the Gers is part of the Occitanie region, it is surrounded by the departments of Hautes-Pyrénées, Haute-Garonne, Tarn-et-Garonne, Lot-et-Garonne and Pyrénées-Atlantiques. The Gers is referred to as amongst the least densely populated, or most rural, areas in all of Western Europe. List of the 10 most important cities of the département: The annual rain varies from more than 900 mm in the south-west of the department, to less than 700 mm in the North-East; the winters vary, with only occasional freezing temperatures. The amount of sunshine is about 1950 hours/years; the summers are dry. Auch is, together with Toulouse, Nîmes, Ajaccio, Marseille and Perpignan, one of the hottest cities in France. According to recent data tourism represents annually: 610 000 tourists, 5.900.000 nights, 22.100 commercial beds, 2 400 paid employment related to tourism, the tourist represent an equivalent of 17.100 permanent inhabitants, their estimated expenditure is 141.000.000 €.
Cantons of the Gers department Communes of the Gers department Arrondissements of the Gers department General Council website Prefecture website Welcome to the Gers in Gascony http://www.tourisme-gers.com
Aubiet
Aubiet is a commune in the Gers department in southwestern France. National road 124, which goes from Toulouse to Auch, passes by Aubiet. Aubiet has a train station. Communes of the Gers department INSEE
Beaumarchés
Beaumarchés is a commune in the Gers department in southwestern France. Communes of the Gers department Celui d'Evy INSEE
Bajonnette
Bajonnette is a commune in the Gers department in southwestern France. Saint-Orens church Communes of the Gers department INSEE
Arrouède
Arrouède is a commune in the Gers department in southwestern France. Communes of the Gers department INSEE
