Nouvelle-France was widely used as the term used to describe the area France colonized, encompassing the area around modern-day Quebec and stretching, at times, south to Louisiana, west to the Rockies, and east to the Maritime provinces of Canada.

New France was a battleground before and during the Seven Years War between Great Britain and France, and after the 1759 battle of the Plaines de Abraham, the British accepted the surrender of effectively all of New France under the Treaty of Paris and the name fell out of use.

But the land of early colonial North America "discovered" by Jacques Cartier in 1534, especially in Canada, is still to this day referred to as New France.