French Overseas Territories

Diagramming the Area of French Sovereignty

Article-Grid, Europe, GeoNotes, Geopolitics, Islands, Myth of the Nation-State / By Martin W. Lewis

In diagramming the area of French sovereignty, I was not sure what to call the region constituted by the regular departments of France (both those in “Metropolitan France” and those located overseas); in the end I opted for “France Proper,” but it seems that there must be a better term. Some sources, including Wikipedia, place Corsica within “l’Hexagone,” but such a classification seems geometrically incorrect to me.

I am fond of the term “sui generis collectivity” for New Caledonia, which is scheduled to hold a referendum on independence between 2014 and 2018. New Caledonia now has a system of dual national symbols, with one set representing its position within the French Republic, and the other looking toward independence. As a result, I have placed it in the outermost layer of French sovereignty. I do not, however, expect independence to come easily to New Caledonia

Comments and criticisms are again welcome.

About GeoCurrents

GeoCurrents is dedicated to exploring the geographical and historical patterns that underlie the world’s current events and that structure global and regional relationships. Maps are used in all posts not merely to show where events occur, but also to illustrate the processes involved.

GeoCurrents tries to avoid taking sides on contentious issues, seeking rather to foster an enriching exchange of information and ideas. As its scope is both fully global and deeply historical, the author is usually operating outside of his own fields of expertise. As a result, mistakes and simplifications can be expected. Corrections and elaborations are more than welcome in the comments section. Comments with insulting or abusive language, however, will be deleted.

Readers interested in opinion-based essays by Martin W. Lewis will be able to find them on his personal webpage.

About The Author

Martin W. Lewis is senior lecturer emeritus at Stanford University, where he taught world history and world geography from 2002 to 2022. He earned a PhD in geography from the University of California at Berkeley in 1988, and previously taught at George Washington University and Duke University. A list of his published works will soon be made available on his personal website.

GeoCurrents’ Conceptual Concerns

GeoCurrents is concerned about almost anything that has a geographical expression and hence can be explored and elucidated through maps. Topics of interest range from the deadly serious to the quirky and whimsical.

Many GeoCurrents posts take on issues of political geography, ranging from wars and ethnic conflicts to electoral returns. Behind these writings is a conviction that the basic world political map is unduly simplistic, making the world seem much more orderly than it really is. A book-length elaboration of this thesis – entitled Seduced by the Map – will be available on the author’s personal webpage by the end of 2023, if not earlier. The introduction and initial chapters on this book can be found on this website. A summary of the main arguments in Seduced by the Map can be found here.

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