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Places and geography

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Framingham, Massachusetts

Framingham, Massachusetts, is a city of about 72,000 in Middlesex County, about 20 miles west of Boston, incorporated as a town in 1700 and as a city in 2018.

Framlingham

Framlingham, Suffolk: an Anglo-Saxon-origin market town in East Suffolk, England, known for Framlingham Castle where Mary Tudor was proclaimed Queen in 1553, its mere, schools, and Ed Sheeran connections.

Franca

Franca is a municipality in northeastern São Paulo state, Brazil, founded in 1805 and named for governor Antônio José da Franca e Horta; it is Brazil's 'Capital Nacional do Calçado Masculino', a major footwear and leather hub with about 366,500 residents (2026 estimate).

France

France (République française), a semi-presidential republic under the 1958 Constitution, EU founding member and euro-area economy of 69.1 million people; nuclear-powered electricity grid, high public debt, and overseas territories spanning all oceans.

France Antarctique

France Antarctique was a short-lived French colony founded by Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon in 1555 at Guanabara Bay, present-day Rio de Janeiro, and destroyed by the Portuguese by 1567.

Franche-Comté

Franche-Comté, the Free County of Burgundy, is a historical region of eastern France between the Saône and the Jura; an Habsburg territory annexed by Louis XIV in 1678 by the Treaty of Nijmegen, it was a French region from 1955 until merging into Bourgogne-Franche-Comté on 1 January 2016.

Francis Island

Francis Island (弗朗西斯島), Antarctic island off the east coast of Graham Land, 22 km ENE of Choyce Point; 13 km long, 9 km wide, named 1947 by FIDS for surveyor S.J. Francis; distinct from Francis Islands in Ontario, Kerguelen, and Chile.

Franciscan Missions in the Sierra Gorda of Querétaro

Franciscan Missions in the Sierra Gorda of Querétaro (Misiones franciscanas de la Sierra Gorda): five 18th-century Franciscan mission churches in Querétaro, Mexico, led by Junípero Serra, UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2003 under criteria (ii) and (iii).

Franclens

Franclens is a French commune in the department of Haute-Savoie on the plateau de la Semine, known for underground quarries that supplied Roman Lyon with white building stone.

François Tomb

François Tomb (Tomba François), an Etruscan painted burial chamber of the Saties family at Vulci's Ponte Rotto necropolis, carved in tuff c. 340–320 BCE, discovered 1857 by Alessandro François; frescoes of Vel Saties, Mastarna, and Achilles entered Villa Giulia in 2026.

Franconia

Franconia (Franken) is a cultural region in southern Germany, mainly northern Bavaria with parts of Baden-Württemberg, Thuringia, and Hesse. Named for the Franks, a medieval stem-duchy, assigned to Bavaria in 1806; three Bavarian districts, East Franconian dialects, distinct Franconian identity.

Franconia Notch State Park

Franconia Notch State Park is a New Hampshire state park in the White Mountains along I-93, between the Kinsman and Franconia ranges, home of the Old Man of the Mountain (collapsed 2003), Flume Gorge, Echo Lake, Cannon Mountain, and Lafayette Place Campground.

Frank Erwin Center

Frank Erwin Center, nicknamed the Drum, was UT Austin's 1977 multipurpose arena and Longhorn basketball home until 2022; demolished 2024 after Moody Center replaced it.

Frankenmuth, Michigan

Frankenmuth, Michigan, or Michigan's Little Bavaria, is a Saginaw County city founded in 1845 as a Franconian Lutheran mission colony by August Craemer under Wilhelm Loehe; about 5,000 residents, 3 million annual visitors, Bavarian-themed tourism.

Frankfort, Kentucky

Frankfort, Kentucky: state capital and Franklin County seat on the Kentucky River, founded 1786, named for Stephen Frank's ford. Population 28,602 (2020); government and bourbon distilling anchor its economy.

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main, German city on the Main river in Hesse; first recorded as Franconofurd in 794, a free imperial city until 1866, now Germany's financial center with the ECB, Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Messe Frankfurt, and 781,337 residents (end 2025).

Frankfurt (Oder)

Frankfurt (Oder), a kreisfreie city in Brandenburg on the German-Polish border, founded 1253, forms a twin city with Słubice across the Oder; population fell from 86,131 (1990) to about 56,600 (2025); home to Europa-Universität Viadrina.

Franklin Bay

Franklin Bay, a V-shaped bay of the southeastern Beaufort Sea in the Northwest Territories between Cape Bathurst and Cape Parry; also Lady Franklin Bay on Ellesmere Island, site of the Greely expedition.

Franklin County, Massachusetts

Franklin County, Massachusetts: rural county in the upper Connecticut River Valley with 71,029 residents (2020) and 26 towns; its county government was abolished July 1, 1997 and replaced by the Franklin Regional Council of Governments.

Franklin County, Ohio

Franklin County, Ohio: county seat Columbus, state capital; established April 30, 1803 from Ross County and named for Benjamin Franklin. Ohio's most populous county (1,323,807 in 2020), governed by a three-member Board of Commissioners with a $2+ billion budget.

Franklin County, Pennsylvania, United States

Franklin County, Pennsylvania: county formed from Cumberland County on September 9, 1784, named for Benjamin Franklin, county seat Chambersburg. Population 155,932 (2020), 160,652 (2025 estimate); leading dairy and fruit county on the I-81 corridor.

Franklin, Tennessee

Franklin is a city in Middle Tennessee and the county seat of Williamson County, about 15 miles south of Nashville, founded in 1799 and named for Benjamin Franklin.

Franklin's lost expedition

Franklin's lost expedition: Sir John Franklin's 1845 voyage in HMS Erebus and HMS Terror to find the Northwest Passage; all 129 crew died after the ships were beset in ice, and the wrecks were found in 2014 and 2016 with Inuit knowledge.

Franks Roman villa

Franks Roman villa (Franks Hall Roman villa), Farningham, Kent: scheduled minor Romano-British villa on the River Darent, 29 m by 19.4 m with wings, hypocaust, occupied 1st-5th century AD, over Iron Age farmstead remains.

Franz Josef Land

Franz Josef Land (Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa), a Russian Arctic archipelago of 192 islands at about 80°N, the northernmost land of Eurasia, about 85% glaciated, discovered in 1873 by the Austro-Hungarian Payer-Weyprecht expedition and named for Emperor Franz Joseph I.

Fraser

Fraser most often means the Fraser River, British Columbia's longest river (1,375 km), an undammed main-stem salmon river named for explorer Simon Fraser, site of the 1858 gold rush.

Fraser Plateau

Fraser Plateau: elevated basalt-capped plateau in central British Columbia, part of the Interior Plateau, bisected by the Fraser River into the Chilcotin and Cariboo plateaus; named for explorer Simon Fraser.

Fraser River

Fraser River: longest river in British Columbia (1,375 km), undammed main stem, draining a quarter of the province to the Strait of Georgia; famed for salmon, Simon Fraser's 1808 descent, and the Port of Vancouver.

Fraser Tombs

The Fraser Tombs are a group of fifteen Fifth Dynasty rock-cut mastaba tombs at Tehna, on the east bank of the Nile in Middle Egypt, north of Minya.

Fraunces Tavern

Fraunces Tavern is a historic tavern and museum at 54 Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan, best known as the site of George Washington's 1783 farewell to his officers.