Evolution of the French colonial empire

From the 16th to the 17th centuries, the First French colonial empire stretched from a total area at its peak in 1680 to over 10,000,000 km2 (3,900,000 sq mi), the second largest empire in the world at the time behind only the Spanish Empire. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the French colonial empire was the second largest colonial empire in the world only behind the British Empire; it extended over 13,500,000 km2 (5,200,000 sq mi) of land at its height in the 1920s and 1930s.

Source: Wikipedia — Evolution of the French colonial empire (CC BY-SA 4.0)