France is the largest nation in Europe, apart from Russia, but people dont realise exactly how big it is. Its population has also been recovering, but relative to other European nations France is surprisingly empty. For example the population density of Italy is an impressive 511.6 per square mile. Germanys is 583 people per square mile. The UK has a whopping 661.9 people per square mile, which is well over twice the average density for France which stands at 301 people per square mile. All of these countries are much smaller than France, but because of their much higher population densities their total populations are nearly equal to Frances (UK and Italy) or actually far superior to Frances (Germany). Of the three, the UK is the smallest, with an area of only 94,060 square miles. Then comes Italy with 116,347 square miles. And finally Germany with 137,847 square miles. These compare to Frances massive 213,010 square miles which is at least 70,000 square miles more than everybody else. Now in actual population things look much less impressive for France. It still has an impressive 63,460,000 people in its metropole. But this is nearly matched by Italy with 59,685,227, the UK with 63,181,775, and Germany with a colossal 80,523,700. But the lands of France are among the richest and best positioned in the world. France has always been a very fertile and productive land, historically far more so than other countries. But France has also had a much more rural and less heavily urbanised character. Very early on Italy was heavily urbanised, and even into the 20th century Italy had more cities over 100,000 people than any other country in Europe. But say we were to give France the population density that Italy possesses. This would give us an incredible 108,975,916 people. Easily the largest population in Europe apart from Russia. With the UKs density it would have 140,991,319, which would actually be about equal to Russia. So France has much potential, and is clearly capable of becoming the most powerful nation in Europe if it even equals Italy in density. If I had to bet, Id put my money on France in the coming decades.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 05:56:58 +0000
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