The island is 183km (1km "Kilometer" is 0.62138 Statute Mile or 3281 feet, if you prefer these odd measures...) long and 83km wide; the highest mountain is Mt. Cinto with its peak 2710m (1m "Meter" is 1/1000th of 1km or 3.28 feet) above sea level. With its 8720sqkm (square kilometers, 1sqkm is 247.11 acres or 0.3861 square mile) of area, Corsica is the third biggest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Its coast is over 1000km long and has about 300km of bathing beach. 86% of the area is hilly country with more than 50 peaks above 2000m, the flat coastal strip occupies only 14% of the total area.
Corsica is inhabited by 240,000 people of which about 40% crowd in the cities of Ajaccio (55,000) and Bastia as capital and 2B on the number plates.
Corsica is very diversified! Just hike for one day, and you'll find everything from maritime to alpine! Summer is usually warm and dry, but in the mountains there's snow until June. July and August are said to be rainless with an average of about two rainy days during these two months.
There are lots of public telephones on Corsica, at least in the towns
and at the coast, but you need a phonecard for most of them (available nearly
everywhere). For foreign calls, dial 19, wait for the buzz tone, then
dial your country's number (eg. 49 for Germany). In France (and Corsica
is part of France), all phone numbers (except in Paris, the capital)
have eight digits, with the first two digits being the area code
(Corsica: 95).
As I already said, the Corse are French - on the paper. They have a
mentality of their own, they speak their own language, and most of them
don't give a damn for France. Many Corse have french first names and
italian last names.
The Corse are originally a people of highlanders and herdsmen, but
today they mostly live on tourism. Generally spoken, chances for young
people to get a job are bad, so it's not astonishing that the ratio of
old people to total population is high. But it's no longer much easier
to earn a living on the continent either, so more and more young people
stay and try to improve their situation there.
It's maybe due to the mixed population of about 50% real Corses, 10%
foreign workers from North Africa and 40% French from the continent and
Algeria (a former French colony) that Corsica still belongs to France.
However, there are strong movements of separatism, and their slogans
are omnipresent.