Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Paris
- Region
- Europe, Western Europe
- Population
- 68,720,337 (2025)
- Area
- 547,030 km²
- Currency
- euro (EUR)
- Languages
- French, Arpitan, Breton, Corsican, Catalan
- Calling code
- +33
- Internet domain
- .fr
- ISO codes
- FR, FRA, 250
- Time zone
- UTC+1:00
- United Nations
- Member state
- Postal code pattern
- ##### (# = digit, @ = letter)
Land and position
France covers about 547,030 square kilometres. By area it ranks 50th among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than Kenya and a little larger than Yemen. It shares a land border with 8 neighbours: Andorra, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco. Its centre lies at about 46° north, 2° east, in the northern hemisphere.
Neighbours
AndorraAndorra la Vella
BelgiumBrussels
SwitzerlandBern
GermanyBerlin
SpainMadrid
ItalyRome
LuxembourgLuxembourg
MonacoMonaco
People
About 68.7 million people live in France (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 23rd most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure, with about 0.84 percent of the world's people. On average there are 126 people to each square kilometre. About 79 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 83 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: French, Arpitan, Breton, Corsican, Catalan, Basque, Occitan (post 1500). A person from France is called French.
Money and economy
The currency is the euro (code EUR, symbol €). It is also the main currency of Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland and 28 more. The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 3.37 trillion (2025), which is about US$ 48,986 for each person (2025).
Time
France uses one time zone, UTC+1:00 (Europe/Paris). Clocks are moved for daylight saving time in part of the year.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Paris | 2,138,551 |
| Marseille | 877,215 |
| Lyon | 520,774 |
| Toulouse | 511,684 |
| Nice | 342,669 |
| Nantes | 325,070 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Western Europe
Liechtenstein, Netherlands. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.