Geography, Weather, & Wildlife of France
Geography
Mont-Saint-Michel
France dominates much of Western Europe as it is one of Europe's largest countries. France sits between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea with its southern half being the start of the Iberian Peninsula. France is bordered by Spain (southwest), Andorra (southwest), Monaco (southeast), Italy (southeast), Switzerland (east), Germany (east), Luxembourg (northeast), and Belgium (north). It also sits very close to the United Kingdom, which is just across the English Channel.
Geographically, France has nearly everything. In the far south, along the border with Spain are the Pyrenees Mountains, which boast some fairly impressive alpine peaks. In France's southeast are the Alps, which are some of the tallest mountains in Europe. From the Alps, running both north and west are additional mountain ranges, which don't provide alpine peaks as much as they do long flowing landscapes with occasional rocky outcrops. It is from these mountain ranges that provide France with a large number of rivers, cutting into the western and northern countryside. Flowing in these directions the rivers drop in elevation as does the landscape. These regions provide excellent crop growth and fertile lands, eventually ending along the Atlantic Ocean or English Channel coastline. Along the Mediterranean Sea coastline the mountains drop off more suddenly as these beaches are often draped in a backdrop of hills or mountains quickly rising up out of the sea.