France & French Culture Educational Posters & Prints, pg 1/2
curriculum resources for classrooms and home schoolers.

France, a part of the European Union, is a ‘unitary semi-presidental republic’ located in Western Europe and has several overseas islands, territories, and collectivities: French Guiana, French Polynesia, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, New Caledonia, Reunion, St Barthelemy, St Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon Isl, and Wallis and Fortuna Isl.

The part of France located on the mainland of the European continent (and including the Mediterrean Island of Corsica) is called Metropolitan France, a designation that originated during the 16th century colonial period. The word “metropolitan” is from the Greek: meter=mother+polis=town.

Metropolitan France is often called L’Hexagone (“The Hexagon”) because of the geometric shape of its territory that extends from the Mediterranean Sea on the south to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine River on the east to the Atlantic Ocean on the west. The countries bordering France are Spain and Andorra to the south, with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Monaco.

Its main ideals are expressed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

Paris, the capital city of France, was first settled by a Gallic tribe known as the Parisii, on an island in the Seine River, sometime aroung 250 BC.

Paris is known as the “City of Light”. As a world art and history center, the city is a popular tourist destination with many iconic landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, designed by Gustave Eiffel for the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris.

• world tree

Notre Dame de Paris cathedral is widely considered one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture which flourished in Europe during the high and late medieval period. Gothic is characterized by the light let in by stained glass windows that were possible because of the new building techniques of the pointed arch, ribbed vault and flying buttress.

Notre Dame translates as “Our Lady” from French.

• architecture posters
• Christianity posters
• river posters

According to legend in 708, St. Michael the Archangel appeared to St. Aubert, bishop of Avranches, instructing him to build a church on the rocky islet just off the coast of Normandy.

It is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry which commemorates the 1066 Norman conquest of England.