France from space on a clear day

France from space on a clear day Today’s Image of the Day comes thanks to the European Space Agency (ESA) and features a look at France from space on a cloudless day.

The image was captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellite and includes the snow-capped Alps to the right and the Pyrenees mountains at the bottom.

While much of the land is occupied by farms, the bustling city of Paris sits just above the center of the image.

France (French: [fʁɑ̃s] (listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française, pronounced [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛːz] (listen)), is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories.  The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered by Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast, Switzerland and Italy to the east, and Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans.

The country’s 18 integral regions (five of which are situated overseas) span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and a total population of 67.02 million (as of July 2019). France is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country’s largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice. France, including its overseas territories, has the most number of time zones of any country, with a total of 12.

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By Rory Arnold, Earth.com Staff Writer

Image Credit: European Space Agency