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.
Argenteuil
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Argenteuil is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 12.3 km from the center of Paris, Argenteuil is a sub-prefecture of the Val-dOise department, the seat of the arrondissement of Argenteuil. Argenteuil was founded as a convent in the 7th century, the monastery that arose from the convent was destroyed during the French Revolution. A rural escape for Parisians, it is now a suburb of Paris, painters made Argenteuil famous, including Claude Monet, Jean-Étienne Delacroix, Auguste Renoir, Gustave Caillebotte, Alfred Sisley and Georges Braque. As of 2016 the communes schools have over 12,000 students, the Conservatoire à rayonnement départemental de Musique, Danse et Théâtre is located in Argenteuil. André Bon is one of its former students
3.
Sarcelles
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Sarcelles is a commune in the northern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 16.3 km from the center of Paris, Sarcelles is a sub-prefecture of the Val-dOise department and the seat of the Arrondissement of Sarcelles. In the south of the commune, during the 1950s and 1960s, HLMs were built in order to accommodate pieds-noirs and Jews, who left Algeria due to the Algerian War of Independence. A few Jews from Egypt settled there after the Suez crisis, Sarcelles is served by Garges – Sarcelles station on Paris RER line D. It is also served by Sarcelles – Saint-Brice station on the Transilien Paris – Nord suburban rail line and this station, although administratively located on the territory of the neighboring commune of Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, lies in fact very near the town centre of Sarcelles. As of 2015 the commune has about 40,000 residents from 40 backgrounds, as of 2007 the majority of the inhabitants of the town are pieds-noirs from Northwest Africa who immigrated to France in the 1960s. Sarcelles is also home to a vibrant Jewish community and the largest concentration of Assyrians in France, residents believe that there is a Sarcelles identity, meaning any ethnic group can be a part of the city, and they believe it lowers levels of crime and violence. Compared with other parts of France, ethnic minorities in Sarcelles gained political power at a faster rate, many politicians responded to minority demands sooner as many immigrants, especially Caribbeans and Sephardic Jews, had French citizenship. Pupponi argued that this style is the best method of giving many ethnic groups one sense of community, critics argued that funding groups catering to specific ethnic groups promotes segregation. As of 2008,8. 7% of the population was of Caribbean origin, as of 2012, many of the ethnic Caribbean residents have French citizenship. By the 1970s, Afro-Caribbeans became more interested in changing politics, by the 1980s, Guy Guyoubli, a local activist, organised an almost all-Caribbean protest list. Maxwell wrote that this demonstrated that Caribbeans had serious intentions of participating in the political system, at the time, ethnic minorities across Metropolitan France were increasingly trying to influence the political system. The citys first ever two Caribbean councillors were elected in 1989, around 1989, Raymond Lamontagne, the mayor, opened Metropolitan Frances first ever Caribbean-oriented, council-funded community centre. In the 1950s and 1960s, Maghrebians began to arrive in Sarcelles, political organisation came in subsequent decades. Originally, the Muslims worshipped in converted makeshift areas, but, later, in the 1990s, Maghrebians were first elected to the commune council. Maxwell wrote that Maghrebians began obtaining key positions only in the vicinity of 2012 due to low turnout, a memorial to Assyro-Chaldean victims of the 1915 Assyrian genocide was dedicated in 2005. Part of the film The Last Assyrians features the Assyrian and Chaldean community, Sarcelles gained a large population of Sephardic Jews as a consequence of the post-World War II Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries. As of 2012, many of the Jewish residents have French citizenship, in 1983, there was a wave of councillors who were Sephardic Jews
4.
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
5.
Charles de Gaulle Airport
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Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, also known as Roissy Airport, is the largest international airport in France. It is named after Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French Forces during the Second World War, founder of the French Fifth Republic, Charles de Gaulle Airport is located within portions of several communes 25 km to the northeast of Paris. The airport serves as the hub for Air France as well as a European hub for fellow SkyTeam alliance partner Delta Air Lines. In 2016, the airport handled 65,933,145 passengers and 472,950 aircraft movements, thus making it the worlds ninth-busiest airport and it is also the worlds tenth-busiest and it is Europes second-busiest airport in aircraft movements. In terms of traffic, the airport is the twelfth-busiest in the world. The incumbent director of the airport, Franck Goldnadel, was appointed to his position on 1 March 2011, Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport covers 32.38 square kilometres of land. Management of the airport lies solely on the authority of Paris Aéroport, which also manages Orly, Le Bourget, Marsa Alam in Egypt, the planning and construction phase of what was known then as Aéroport de Paris Nord began in 1966. On 8 March 1974 the airport, renamed Charles de Gaulle Airport, Terminal 1 was built in an avant-garde design of a ten-floors-high circular building surrounded by seven satellite buildings, each with six gates allowing sunlight to enter through apertures. The main architect was Paul Andreu, who was also in charge of the extensions during the following decades, the Frutiger typeface was commissioned for use in the airport and implemented on signs throughout the building in 1975. Initially called Roissy, it was renamed after its designer Adrian Frutiger, until 2005, every PA announcement made at Terminal 1 was preceded by a distinctive chime, nicknamed Indicatif Roissy and composed by Bernard Parmegiani in 1971. The chime can be heard in the Roman Polanski film Frantic, the chime was officially replaced by the Indicatif ADP chime. Charles de Gaulle Airport has three terminals, Terminal 1 is the oldest and situated opposite to Terminal 3, Terminal 2 is located at another side with 7 sub-terminal buildings. Terminal 2 was originally exclusively for Air France, since then it has been expanded significantly. Terminals 2A to 2F are interconnected by elevated walkways and situated next to each other, Terminal 2G is a satellite building connected by shuttle bus. Terminal 3 hosts charter and low-cost airlines, the CDGVAL light-rail shuttle connects Terminal 2 to Terminals 1/3 and their parking lots. Refer to Ground Transportation below for inter-terminal transfers and transport to central Paris, the first terminal, designed by Paul Andreu, was built in the image of an octopus. It consists of a terminal building which houses key functions such as check-in counters. Seven satellites with boarding gates are connected to the building by underground walkways
6.
Yvelines
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Yvelines is a French department in the region of Île-de-France. It inherited Seine-et-Oises official number of 78 and it gained the communes of Châteaufort and Toussus-le-Noble from the adjacent department of Essonne in 1969. Yvelines is bordered by the departments of Val-dOise on the north, Hauts-de-Seine on the east, Essonne on the southeast, Eure-et-Loir on the southwest, and Eure on the west. Two regional parks can be found in Yvelines, the parc of the Haute Vallée de Chevreuse, Yvelines is home to one of Frances best known golf courses, La Tuilerie-Bignon, in the village of Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche. In French, a man from the Yvelines is called Yvelinois, a woman is Yvelinoise
7.
Eure
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Eure is a department in the north of France named after the river Eure. Eure is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790 and it was created from part of the former province of Normandy. After the allied victory at Waterloo, Eure was occupied by Prussian troops between June 1815 and November 1818, in the wake of Louis-Napoléons December coup of 1851, Eure was one of the departments placed under a state of emergency in order to avert resistance to the post-republican régime. In the event fewer than 100 government opponents in Eure were arrested, Eure is part of the current region of Normandy and is surrounded by the departments of Seine-Maritime, Oise, Val-dOise, Yvelines, Eure-et-Loir, Orne, and Calvados. The department is a wooded plateau intersected by the valleys of the Seine River. The altitude varies from sea level in the north to 248 metres above it in the south, the President of the General Council is Jean-Louis Destans of the Socialist Party. The main tourist attraction is Giverny where Claude Monets house and garden can be seen, the Abbey of Bec and the Château-Gaillard near Les Andelys are other important tourist attractions. The Château of Buisson de May was built by the royal architect Jacques Denis Antoine from 1781 to 1783
8.
Oise
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Oise is a department in the north of France. It is named after the river Oise, natives of the department are called Isariens. Oise is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4,1790 and it was created from part of the province of Île-de-France and Picardy. After the coalition victory at Waterloo, the department was occupied by British troops between June 1815 and November 1818, Oise is part of the current region of Hauts-de-France and is situated 35 km north of Paris. It is surrounded by the departments of Somme, Aisne, Seine-et-Marne, Val-dOise, Eure, the major tourist attraction of the department is the Parc Astérix, which opened in 1989. Another very interesting site is Beauvais Cathedral, also to be seen is the Chateau de Pierrefonds, restored by Viollet-le-Duc. The art collection of the Château de Chantilly is one of the largest outside Paris, one of the villages along the river Oise is Auvers-sur-Oise, famous for having been visited by several impressionist artists. This is where Vincent van Gogh spent his last 70 days and it is his and his brother Theos resting place
9.
Seine-et-Marne
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Seine-et-Marne is a French department, named after the Seine and Marne rivers, and located in the Île-de-France region. Seine-et-Marne is one of the original 83 departments, created on 4 March 1790 and it had previously belonged to the former province of Île-de-France. With 60% of the used as farmland, Seine-et-Marne is where most agricultural activity occurs within the Île-de-France. Cereals and sugar beet are the exports from Seine-et-Marne. The other key structures are the refinery at Grandpuits and the Snecma research plant. The two new towns are the centre of tourism for the department, mainly due to parks such as Disneyland Park. Seine-et-Marne has a temperate Atlantic climate, the average rainfall is based upon that of Fontainebleau, giving an average rainfall of 650 mm, which is higher than the average of Île-de-France. Average temperature in Melun during the 1953–2002 period was 3.2 °C for January and 18.6 °C for July, the storm of 26 December 1999 led to five deaths in Seine-et-Marne and caused several trees to fall. Seine-et-Marne forms a part of the region, the department covers 49% of the regions land area. It is bordered by Val-dOise, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne, Essonne to the West, Loiret and Yonne to the South, Aube and Marne to the East, the department has many natural reserves, notably Brie and Gâtinais. The highest point of the département is Saint-Georges Hill, people from Seine-et-Marne are known as the Seine-et-Marnais. Originally Seine-et-Marne was very rural and lightly populated, over the past 50 years, however, its population has tripled, due to the development of the Paris conurbation and the building of new towns in the northwest of the region. The population was estimated to be 1,267,496 inhabitants in 2006, the region has changed from consisting only of small villages to forming a large part of the Paris conurbation. Seine-et-Marne as a whole shares a sister city relationship with Orlando, Florida, United States, mutualité, assurance et cycles de lincendie
10.
Seine-Saint-Denis
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Seine-Saint-Denis is a French department located in the Île-de-France region. Locally, it is referred to colloquially as quatre-vingt treize or neuf trois. The learned and rarely used demonym for the inhabitants is Séquano-Dionysiens, Seine-Saint-Denis is located to the northeast of Paris. It has an area of only 236 km², making it one of the smallest departments in France. Seine-Saint-Denis and two other departments, Hauts-de-Seine and Val-de-Marne, form a ring around Paris, known as the Petite Couronne. They form, together with Paris the Greater Paris since January 1st 2016, Seine-Saint-Denis is made up of three departmental arrondissements and 40 communes, Seine-Saint-Denis was created in January 1968, through the implementation of a law passed in July 1964. It was formed from the part of the Seine department to the north and north-east of the Paris ring road, Seine-Saint-Denis has a history as a veritable left-wing stronghold, belonging to the ceinture rouge of Paris. The French Communist Party especially has maintained a strong presence in the department. A commune of Seine-Saint-Denis, Clichy-sous-Bois, was the scene of the death of two youths which sparked the riots of autumn 2005. In October - November,9,000 cars were burned and 3,000 rioters were arrested, Seine-Saint-Denis is the French department with the highest proportion of immigrants,21. 7% at the 1999 census. This figure does not include the children of immigrants born on French soil as well as some native elites from former French colonies, the ratio of ethnic minorities is difficult to estimate accurately as French law prohibits the collection of ethnic data for census taking purposes. However estimates suggest there are 500,000 Muslims out of a population of 1.53 million. Saint-Denis is home to the Union of French Islamic Organizations in the Bourget district, in 2005,56. 7% of young people under 18 were of foreign origin including 38% of African origin. Islam is believed to be the most practiced religion in the department, Seine-Saint-Denis was scheduled to be the site of a 2004 International Exhibition. Website of the General council Prefecture website Seine-Saint-Denis Tourist Board
11.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
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Cergy
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Cergy is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 27.8 km from the center of Paris, in the new town of Cergy-Pontoise, created in the 1960s, of which it is the central, the sous-préfecture building and administration, on the other hand, are located inside the commune of Pontoise. The name Cergy comes from Medieval Latin Sergiacum, meaning estate of Sergius, Cergy is the chief town of two cantons, Cergy-1 and Cergy-2. Tres Cantos, Spain West Lancashire, United Kingdom, Cergy is also informally twinned with a village in Palestine and a village in Senegal. When Cergy was selected to become the center of a new town, the commune had only 2,895 inhabitants in 1968. It then started to develop quickly, exceeding 10,000 inhabitants in the mid-1970s. It is in this decade that its growth was most spectacular, the increase continued since, but at a notably slower pace, to reach 54,500 at 2004 estimates. However, on 1 January 2000, the commune lost a portion of its territory to the adjacent commune of Courdimanche. The official census figures have thus been revised downward from the 1999 official 54,781 to 54,719, port Cergy is a marina on the River Oise at pk 9. The site comprises both housing and recreational yachts as well as a boating school, the marina can hold 103 ships ranging 5 to 22m long and. The northern part of the site is reserved for restaurants and shops and have built around a small bassin. Ham is a village to the south of Cergy. The village used to be part of the Sergentery and then commune of Neuville-sur-Oise but has since been amalgamated in the commune of Cergy, on its territory is the outdoor leisure centre Base de Loisirs de Cergy-Neuville. Cergy is served by three stations on Paris RER line A and on the Transilien Paris – Saint-Lazare suburban rail line, Cergy – Préfecture, Cergy – Saint-Christophe, Cergy is served by direct buses from Charles de Gaulle Airport. Reaching, in the year of 2008, a rate of 99,87 criminal incidents per 1000 inhabitants, the town was used as a filming location for Henri Verneuils film I. comme Icare released in 1979, starring Yves Montand. The EDF-GDF tower designed by architect Renzo Moro is the building from which the shots were fired to assassinate president Marc Jarry, the country that the movie depicts is not named, although the United States is perhaps suggested. The filmmakers chose the modern and innovative architecture of the new city to avoid depicting any particular country, communes of the Val-dOise department Official website Mérimée database – Cultural heritage Land use
