Metropolitan France (French: France métropolitaine or la Métropole), also known as European France (French: le territoire européen de la France), is the part of France geographically located in Europe. It consists of mainland France, popularly known as "the Hexagon" (French: France hexagonale or l'Hexagone), Corsica, and nearby French islands in the Atlantic Ocean, the English Channel, and the Mediterranean Sea.
This term is an official one and is used in everyday life in France but has no administrative meaning, as the overseas regions have the same administrative status as the metropolitan regions. However, only Metropolitan France is part of the Schengen Area. Its borders, especially in the east, changed significantly over the centuries but have remained largely unchanged since the independence of Algeria in 1962.
In contrast, overseas France (France d'outre-mer) is the collective name for the French departments and territories outside Europe. Together, metropolitan and overseas France form the French Republic. Metropolitan France accounts for 82.0% of the republic's land territory, 3.3% of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and 95.9% of its population. Some small parts of France, such as Cerdanya, are part of the Iberian Peninsula.
In overseas France, a person from metropolitan France is often called a métro, short for métropolitain.
Etymology
The term "metropolitan France" dates from the country's colonial period (from the 16th to the 20th centuries), when France was referred to as la Métropole (literally "the Metropolis"), as distinguished from its colonies and protectorates, known as les colonies or l'Empire. Similar terms existed to describe other European colonial powers (e.g. "metropolitan Spain", España metropolitana). This application of the words "metropolis" and "metropolitan" came from Ancient Greek "metropolis" (from μήτηρ mētēr "mother" and πόλις pólis "city, town"), which was the name for a city-state that created colonies across the Mediterranean (e.g. Marseille was a colony of the city-state of Phocaea; therefore Phocaea was the "metropolis" of Marseille). By extension "metropolis" and "metropolitan" came to mean "motherland", a nation or country as opposed to its colonies overseas.
