France is a nation situated in the West of Europe. It is surrounded by countries like Andorra, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Monaco, Switzerland and Italy. While studying the geography of France one can learn that the three boundaries of France”namely the northwestern, southwestern and southeastern shores”are surrounded by water. On the Northwest is the English Channel, in the Southwest there is Atlantic Ocean and on the Southeast is the Mediterranean Sea. The land boundaries of France are stretched up to 4083 kms while it is surrounded by over 3500 kms by water bodies.

France is internally divided on a broader scale into twenty two regions. Each of these regions is further divided into parts which are named, “departments,” and amount to over 100. These departments are divided into parts called, “arrondissements,” of which there are 342. These arrondissements are subdivided into areas which are called “cantons.” There are more than 4,000 cantons. The subdivisions of cantons are the “communes.” There are 36,781 total communes in France. The number of these departments, arrondissements, cantons and communes according to the geography of France increase along with the increase in population.

The geography of France reflects that apart from the internal divisions in the metropolitan areas of France, there are also some overseas territories, regions and collectivities which are part of the Republic of France. There are four overseas regions of France which include: French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Reunion. Each of these overseas regions is dual structured as regions-departments. Like the metropolitan France, these departments are subsets of the regions. These overseas departments are divided into twelve arrondissements which are further subdivided into cantons and finally cantons into communes similar to the Metropolitan France.

One third part of France is composed of flat plains while another two-thirds is covered by hilly areas in the Northern and Western parts of the country. The different mountains in France include the Alps, the Pyrenees and the Vosges ranges. Due to less area with flat plains only around thirty percent of the land is suidiv for agriculture. Out of this, only two percent is used for growing crops. With a considerable amount of hilly terrain there is an abundance of timber as a result of the dense forests. The other natural resources include coal, iron ore, bauxite, zinc, uranium, antimony, arsenic, potash, feldspar, fluorospar and gypsum.