French America

French America (French: Amérique française), sometimes called Franco-America, in contrast to Anglo-America, is the French-speaking community of people and their diaspora, notably those tracing back origins to New France, the early French colonization of the Americas. The Canadian province of Quebec is the centre of the community and is the point of origin of most of French America. It also includes communities in all provinces of Canada (especially in New Brunswick, where francophones are roughly one third of the population),^[1] Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy, Martinique, Guadeloupe (all are parts of France), Saint Lucia and Haiti in the Caribbean; French Guiana (overseas region of France) in South America. Also there are minorities of French speakers in part of the United States (New England, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, California, Illinois and New York), the Dominican Republic, Dominica, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago.

The Ordre des francophones d'Amérique is a decoration given in the name of the community to its members. It can also be described as the Francophonie of the Americas.

Because French is a Romance language, French America is sometimes considered to be part of Latin America, but this term more often refers to Hispanic America and Portuguese America, or simply the Americas south of the United States.

Countries, administrative divisions and French possessions

This is a list of countries, administrative divisions and French possessions in the Americas having the French language as an official language or where a French-based creole language is commonly spoken. The data of each place are based in the 2012–2013 Census.


Country	Population	Area (km²)^[a]	GDP (nominal)	GDP (nominal) per capita
Clipperton Island (France)	0	6
Dominica	72,660^{[note 1]}	750	$485 million^[2]	$7,860^[2]
French Guiana (France)	244,118^[3]	83,534		€15,416^[4]
Guadeloupe (France)	402,119^[3]^{[note 2]}	1,628		€19,810 ^[4]
Haiti	9,996,731^[5]	27,750	$12.942 billion^[6]	$758^[6]
Martinique (France)	385,551^[3]	1,128		€21,527^[4]
New Brunswick (Canada)	747,101^{[note 3]}	72,907	$31.974 billion^[7]	$47,443^[8]
Quebec (Canada)	8,164,361	1,542,056	$394.819 billion^[9]	$47,443^[8]
Saint Barthélemy (France)	9,279^[3]	25^[10]
Saint Lucia	173,765	617	$1.239 billion^[11]	$7,769^[11]
Saint Martin (France)	35,594^[3]	53.2	$599 million^[12]	$21,921^[13]
Saint Pierre and Miquelon (France)	6,057^[3]	242	$215 million^[14]	€26,073^[15]
Total	20,237,336^{[note 4]}	1,730,696

Members and corresponding diasporas

Acadia—(Acadians)
Cajuns

Notes

^ The number of French speakers is unknown.
^ Figure without the territories of Saint Martin and Saint Barthélemy detached from Guadeloupe on 22 February 2007.
^ Only 1/3 of the population are francophone.
^ Total population of the territories. Actual number of francophones is lower.