France

Quick facts

How to spot France from satellite imagery

France is the largest country in the European Union by area at 551,000 square kilometres — bigger than Spain, bigger than Germany, bigger than the UK by more than a factor of two. The country is famously shaped like a hexagon, with three sides facing the sea (the English Channel, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean) and three facing land borders (with Belgium and Luxembourg, with Germany, Switzerland, and Italy along the Alps and the Jura, and with Spain along the Pyrenees). That hexagonal balance produces a striking variety of landscapes within a country compact enough to drive across in a day.

For geography-game purposes, France is one of the most rewarding European countries to learn. Each of its main regions has a distinctive aerial signature, and once you can tell the wheat plains of Beauce from the vineyards of the Languedoc from the bocage of Normandy, France becomes one of the easier European countries to lock in within a couple of seconds.