12 ATLASES

History of France in maps

France as it appears in 12 interactive history atlases, from 264 BC to 2015: Gaul, France — the crusade’s recruiting ground, France. Each era below lists who ruled the land and when control changed, linked to the dated map that shows it.

What was France before it was France? The sections below follow this land through every era covered by the Maps of History atlases: who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed. Each line links to the dated map. Modern borders serve as an approximation, as each atlas says on the map itself.

Gaul (mod. France) · Ancient Rome

Caesar conquered Gaul in eight years. Ancient sources put the cost at a million people killed and a million enslaved (Ch. 5). Four centuries of Roman rule followed: Lyon became a major Roman city, and Latin eventually developed into French. Even the breakaway Gallic Empire of 260–274 retained Roman forms of rule. After the crossings of 406, the Franks gained power, gave France its name and preserved the Roman church.

ANCIENT ROME: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Francia (mod. France) · Norse and Aztecs

NORSE AND AZTECS: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

France — the crusade’s recruiting ground · Crusades

France supplied recruits to every major crusading expedition and formed the movement’s heartland. So many crusaders spoke French that “Franks” — al-Faranj — became the Muslim word for all Latin Christians. King Louis IX led two expeditions himself. Crusading also served the French crown at home: the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars helped it absorb the independent, cultured south of the country.

CRUSADES: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

France · Industrial Revolution

France took a different route to industrial power. With less coal and a large peasant population, it grew steadily through skilled, high-quality production: silk at Lyon, cottons in Alsace, engineering at Le Creusot, and later cars and electricity. Its banks financed railways across Europe, and its loans built Russian industry. Historians once called France a laggard; many now see an industrial path suited to its resources. In 1871 it lost Alsace and much of Lorraine to Germany.

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

France · Age of Revolutions

France helped finance the American war and emerged bankrupt. In 1789 it produced a revolution of its own: the Republic followed in 1792, then the Terror and Napoleon. French armies redrew borders across this map, while kings were restored twice and expelled twice, in 1830 and 1848. The Declaration of Rights and the Code became two of the age’s most-copied documents; follow chapters 3–4, 6–9 and 11–12.

AGE OF REVOLUTIONS: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

France · Meiji Japan and post-Soviet Russia

MEIJI JAPAN AND POST-SOVIET RUSSIA: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

France · WWI

France fought on its own soil while its richest coal, iron and industrial provinces lay behind German lines from 1914. It mobilized 8 million men and lost 1.4 million. Verdun became a national epic (Ch. 7), while the mutinies of 1917 were a hidden crisis (Ch. 10); in 1918 Foch became its answer. Victory left a fear about future security: in another war there would be twenty million fewer Frenchmen than Germans.

WWI: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

France · Road to WW2

France, the most invaded great power, relied for security on Versailles, the Maginot Line and alliances in eastern Europe. That system was dismantled clause by clause while French politics tore itself apart. In 1936 France declined to confront the Rhineland bluff alone. In 1940 it fought superbly and too late, falling in six weeks because of doctrine, not decadence. Division into an occupied north and a Vichy south did not end French agency: France continued to act on both sides.

ROAD TO WW2: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

France · WW2

France entered the war in 1939 as a great power. Six weeks of fighting in 1940 brought defeat (Ch. 3), followed by German occupation in the north and collaborationist Vichy rule in the south. De Gaulle’s Free French and the Resistance kept fighting for another France. Liberation came in 1944, and France was restored as an occupying power in Germany, though the war’s scars still shape its politics.

WW2: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

France · Cold War

France fought two of the era’s worst colonial exits: Indochina, at Dien Bien Phu (Ch. 7), and Algeria, whose war killed the Fourth Republic. Within the Western camp, it then chose an armed independence of its own. It acquired the bomb in 1960, left NATO’s integrated command in 1966, and lectured both blocs. De Gaulle’s wager was that Europe should be a power rather than a theater; that wager is still being tested.

COLD WAR: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

France · Feminism and the Tunisian Revolution

France contributed both a philosopher of the second wave, Simone de Beauvoir, and acts of daring civil disobedience: the Manifesto of the 343 in 1971 and the open, illegal abortions performed by the MLAC. French women themselves had voted only since 1944–45. The Veil law legalized abortion in January 1975, a year after the creation of a new ministry for the condition of women. France ratified CEDAW in 1983.

FEMINISM AND THE TUNISIAN REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

France · Refugee crises

France administered an occupation zone in Germany and the Saar. In 1945 it repatriated millions of its prisoners and forced laborers, and it took tens of thousands of DPs as workers. Decades later, French intellectuals of left and right united behind “A Boat for Vietnam” in 1979. Over two decades France resettled about 96,000 Indochinese, many with French education or family ties dating from the colonial era.

REFUGEE CRISES: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

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• Ancient Rome timeline and maps
• Norse and Aztecs timeline and maps
• Crusades timeline and maps
• Industrial Revolution timeline and maps
• Age of Revolutions timeline and maps
• Meiji Japan and post-Soviet Russia timeline and maps