It's a lexical at the outermost scope (what'd probably be referred to as "file scope" in C-land) and it's visibility is limited to everything lexically within the file it's declared in (after the point at which the declaration occurs, of course).

I think you're getting --'d here because calling a file scope'd lexical a "global", the term usually in Perl usage referring to package variables which live in the truly global symbol table, is only likely to further confuzzle people.

Update: Someone else below has them called "file statics" in C; I've heard both terms I think.