Metropolitan France (French: France métropolitaine or la Métropole, or colloquially l'Hexagone) is the part of France located in Europe. It can also be described as mainland France or as the French mainland and the island of Corsica. By contrast, Overseas France (la France d'outre-mer, or l'Outre-mer, or colloquially les DOM-TOM) is the collective name for the French overseas departments (départements d'outre-mer or DOM), territories (territoires d'outre-mer or TOM), collectivities (collectivités d'outre-mer or COM) and the sui generis collectivity (collectivité sui generis) of New Caledonia.
Metropolitan France and Overseas France together form what is officially called the French Republic. Metropolitan France accounts for 81.8% of the territory and 95.9% of the population of the French Republic.
The five overseas departments—Martinique, Guadeloupe, Réunion, French Guiana, and Mayotte—have the same political status as metropolitan France's departments. Metropolitan France and these five overseas departments together are sometimes called France entière ("entire France") by the French administration, especially by INSEE, although in reality this France entière does not include the French overseas collectivities and territories which have more autonomy than the overseas departments (read the Origin of the name section below).
In overseas France, a person from metropolitan France is often called a métro, short for métropolitain.
Read more about Metropolitan France: Origin of The Name, Statistics, Continental France
Famous quotes containing the words metropolitan and/or france:
“In metropolitan cases, the love of the most single-eyed lover, almost invariably, is nothing more than the ultimate settling of innumerable wandering glances upon some one specific object.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“It is not enough that France should be regarded as a country which enjoys the remains of a freedom acquired long ago. If she is still to count in the world—and if she does not intend to, she may as well perish—she must be seen by her own citizens and by all men as an ever-flowing source of liberty. There must not be a single genuine lover of freedom in the whole world who can have a valid reason for hating France.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)