Occitanie

Occitanie
Occitània
Region

Flag
Coat of arms
Country  France
Prefecture Toulouse
Departments
13
Government
 • President Carole Delga (Socialist Party)
Area
 • Total 72,724 km2 (28,079 sq mi)
Population (2015)
 • Total 5,774,185
 • Density 79/km2 (210/sq mi)
Time zone UTC+1 (CET)
 • Summer (DST) UTC+2 (CEST)

Occitanie (French: [ɔksitani] ( listen); Occitan: Occitània [utsiˈtanjɔ]; Catalan: Occitània [uksiˈtaniə]) or Occitania[1] is an administrative region of France that was created on January 1st, 2016 from former French regions Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées. France's Conseil d'État approved Occitanie as the new name of the region on September 28th 2016, effective from September 30th 2016.[2]

The modern administrative region is named after the cultural and historical region of Occitania, which covers a larger area. The modern administrative area covers a similar area to that ruled by the Counts of Toulouse in the 12th and 13th centuries. The banner of arms of those counts, known colloquially as the Occitan cross, is used by the modern region and is also a popular cultural symbol.

The new region covers an area of more than 72,724 km2 (28,079 sq mi) with a population of 5,626,858.[3] It borders Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Andorra (Canillo, Encamp, La Massana, Ordino) and Spain (Aragon and Catalonia)

The historic cultural area of Occitania
The County of Toulouse in 1154 (shown in blue)

Toponymy

As the provisional name of the new region, the text of the law used the hyphenated names of the region's predecessors, Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées, in alphabetical order. As for most of the merged regions, a permanent name was proposed by the new regional council, thereby replacing the provisional name. [4][5][6] The new name, Occitanie, derives from the historical name of the broader region, which refers to the historic use of the Occitan language and its various dialects in the region, named for the use of the word òc as the equivalent of "yes."

Enacted in 2014, the territorial reform of the regions had been subject to debate for many years.[7] On June 24th 2016, the regional assembly of Languedoc-Roussillon-Midi-Pyrénées adopted Occitanie after a lengthy public consultation.[8]

The regional assembly resolution distressed the circa 450,000 French Catalans (or Catalans of the North, as they mostly call themselves) living in the region, and who regarded the new name as ignoring their presence.[9] On September 10th 2016, about 10,000 people (according to organizers - the police stated they number as 7,800) demonstrated in Perpignan, demanding that the merged region name contained the words Pays Catalan (Catalan land).[10]

The provisional name of the region was withdrawn on September 30th 2016, when the new name of the region took effect.[2]

Departments

Code Arms 1 Department Prefecture Named after Population (2013)
09 Ariège Foix Ariège (river) 152,684
11 Aude Carcassonne Aude (river) 364,877
12 Aveyron Rodez Aveyron (river) 277,740
30 Gard Nîmes Gardon (river) 733,201
31 Haute-Garonne Toulouse Garonne (river) 1,298,562
32 Gers Auch Gers (river) 190,276
34 Hérault Montpellier Hérault (river) 1,092,331
46 Lot Cahors Lot (river) 173,758
48 Lozère Mende Mont Lozère 76,607
65 Hautes-Pyrénées Tarbes Pyrenees 228,868
66 Pyrénées-Orientales Perpignan Pyrenees 462,705
81 Tarn Albi Tarn (river) 381,927
82 Tarn-et-Garonne Montauban Tarn and Garonne rivers 250,342

Major communities

Culture

Historical identity
Map of the new region with its thirteen départements, colored according to the historical provinces as they existed until 1790.

This new administrative region includes provinces and territories that have diverse cultural and historical origins: the Languedoc (High and Low Languedoc), Països Catalans (Roussillon, Cerdanya, Vallespir, Conflent, Capcir), the County of Foix, and the eastern parts of ancients Gascony (Armagnac, Comminges, Couserans, Bigorre, Condomois, Nébouzan, Rivière-Verdun) and Guiana (Carcin, Roergue). During the Ancien Régime, however, most of them belonged to the Parliament of Toulouse founded in 1443.

Occitania

Occitania[11] (Occitània[12] or Óucitanìo[13] in Occitan) is an historical region[14][15][16] of southwestern Europe where Occitan was the main vernacular language. This territory was already united in Roman times under the name of Viennese and then "Seven Provinces" (Latin: Septem Provinciæ[17]) and the Aquitaine at the beginning of the Middle Ages[18] (Aquitanica, Visigoth kingdom of Toulouse[19]), before the Frankish conquest. Occitania is characterized by "the Occitan culture" which represents since the Middle Ages the second side of the Romance culture in France and to a lesser extent in Italy, in Spain and in Monaco.[20] It is presented and recognized on institutional sites of French communities, such as those of the Lot-et-Garonne County Council[21] or the city of Agen.[22]

Languedoc
The blazon of the counts of Toulouse and Languedoc: the Occitan cross gold on gules.

The territory of what is progressively called Languedoc (the region where langue d'oc is spoken, in Occitan Lengadòc, Occitan pronunciation: [.leŋgo̞ðɔ]) is largely attached to the Kingdom of France in the 13th century after the Albigensian Crusade (1208–1229) which aims to put an end to what is called by the Church "Catharine heroism" and which especially allowed the Capetian dynasty to extend their influence to the south of the Loire. The former principalities of Trencavel (Viscount of Albi, Carcassona, Besièrs, Agde and Nimes are thus integrated into the Royal French Domain) in 1224 and Counts of Toulouse in 1271. The last feudal enclaves will gradually be absorbed in turn in a movement which continues until the beginning of the 16th century, with the County of Gévaudan in 1258, the County of Melgueil (Mauguiò) in 1293, the Lordship of Montpellier in 1349 and the Viscounts of Narbonne in 1507.

The territory falling within the jurisdiction of Estates of Languedoc (convened for the first time in 1346) then gradually reduced to what is called during the Ancien Régime the province of Languedoc.

The year 1359 marks a turning point[23] in the history of the province: as Henri Gilles has established[24] in 1965 in[25] his monograph on The States of Languedoc at 15th c.,[26] it is in 1359 that the bonnes villes[27] of the three bailiwicks of Bèucaire, Carcassona and Tolosa[24][25] conclude between them a perpetual union[24][25] then[26] require royal officers[27] to be summoned together[24][25] and no longer separately, by sénéchaussée. Towards the end of 14th century, this "country of the three seneschalties", to which the name of Languedoc was to be reserved, designates the two sénéchaussées of Bèucaire-Nimes and Carcassona and the eastern part of that of Tolosa (Toulouse), preserved in the Treaty of Brétigny. The County of Foix, which belongs to the seneschal of Carcassona until 1333 then that of Toulouse, ceases to belong to Languedoc.

In 1542, the province is divided into two généralités: that of Toulouse for Haut-Languedoc, and that of Montpellier for Bas-Languedoc. These last until 1789. On the other hand, from 17th century, there is only one intendance for the whole Languedoc, sitting in Montpellier.

Haute-Guyenne
Coat of arms of the duchies of Aquitaine and Guyenne, taken again by the province of Guyenne, of gules with a leopard of gold

Historical countries of Grand Sud-Ouest français, the former provinces of Gascony (in Gascon Gasconha (Occitan pronunciation: [gasˈkuɲɔ / gasˈkuɲə]) and Guyenne (in Occitan Guiana Occitan pronunciation: [giˈjanɔ]) come from medieval duchys of Vasconia, Aquitaine then of Guyenne. Only the eastern regions of these two provinces are today part of the Occitania region: they correspond essentially to the territories that were acquired by the kings of England, dukes of Guyenne, to treaty of Brétigny of 1360, then which remained under the jurisdiction of the Parlement of Toulouse after the creation of the Parlement of Bordeaux in 1462. From that time, they are generally grouped under the name of Haute-Guyenne, as opposed to Basse-Guyenne dependent on the Bordeaux court.

The territories of the former province of Guyenne (Guiana) included in the region actually correspond to Quercy (the current department of Lot and the north of Tarn e Garona) and Roergue (Avairon). Possession of the Counts of Toulouse, from a branch junior or the main branch, from the 19th century, these two counties are thus part of the linguistic area of Occitan in its Languedocien dialectal variant. Like the other possessions of the Counts of Toulouse, they are integrated for the first time with the French royal domain in 1271 then are yielded to the kings of England to the Treaty of Brétigny of 1360. The Quercy is definitely reunited with the Crown in 1472, the Roergue, possession of the counts of Armagnac, before for its part to wait 1607. They are part of the province of Guyenne (erected in gouvernement militaire in 1561), and constitute the généralité de Montauban from 1635 (which becomes the province of Haute-Guyenne in 1779). Today, the term Guyenne no longer has any reality either administrative or political. Only the Haut-Agenais, in search of an identity, tried to exploit the historic capital "Guiana" by promoting the "Pais de Guiana" in the Lot-et-Garonnean part of the valley of Dròt. However, this meaning is now dethroned by "Pais del Dròt", a more tourist-oriented term. The appellations of Quercy and Roergue retain, on the other hand, a strong identity value.

Coat of arms of the former province of Gascogne, quartered azure a lion of silver and gules a sheaf of wheat azure bound gold, was created for Louis XIV: it refers to the lion of counts of Armagnac

Gascony is the former province located on the territory of current departments of Gers (Armanhac and Condomois), Hautes-Pyrénées (Bigorre), to which are added the Lanas in the neighboring region and, in part, other departments of the two regions of Aquitània and Midi-Pyrénées (Comenge, Nebosan and Rivière-Verdun in the south and west of the Haute-Garonne essentially, Couserans in the western part of Ariège). Successively called Aquitania, Novempopulania, Vasconia (territory of the people of Vascones) and Gascony at 13th century, it is strong of geographical diversity of its natural territory, located between Atlantic, Garona and Pyrenees. Claiming an cultural identity based on its evolving history of Aquitani peoples of Proto-Basque language to a people of Gascons sharing an latinized dialect (an Occitan dialect) common, it constitutes the current linguistic area of the Gascon. It is gradually part of the Royal French domain, between the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century. Thus, the Comenge is yielded to the kings of France to the extinction of the local dynasty in 1443, the Armagnac, the Bigorre and the Nebosan with the county of Foix in 1607.

County of Foix (Fois)

The County of Foix[28] is an old French county created around 1050[28] from the County of Carcassonne for Bernard Roger,[28] son of Roger I of Carcassonna.[28] In 1398, the county passes to House of Grailly[28] and, in 1458, the King Charles VII of France erects it in peer in favor of the count Gaston IV.[29]

The county-peerage passes to the House of Albret in 1484[28] then to House of Bourbon-Vendôme in 1548.[28] In 1607, the king Henri IV unites the county to the Royal French domain.[28]

Since the French Revolution, the county is fully included in the department of Ariège. The Occitan dialect that is traditionally spoken there is the Languedocien.

Roussillon
The coat of arms of Roussillon refers to the Flag of Catalonia

The territories of the Province of Ancien Régime of Roussillon, formerly integrated with the Catalan counties, Kingdom of Majorca and the crown of Aragon, were attached to the crown of France during the Treaty of the Pyrenees signed on 7 November 1659. Before this treaty, the border between the kingdoms of France and Aragon followed further north, the line of citadels of vertigo (see Castles and Treaty of Corbeil).

They correspond to the counties founded in the 9th century of Roussillon and Conflent as well as to the northern part of that of Cerdanya, to which is added the former viscount of Vallespir (pagus of County of Besalú united to that of Roussillon in 1209). Bringing together the vigueries of Roussillon,[30] Conflent[31] and the north of that of Cerdanya[32] which existed in the government of the counties of Roussillon and Cerdanya (governació dels comtats of Rosselló i Cerdanya in Catalan[33]) of the Crown of Aragon at the time of their attachment to France, the new province of Roussillon[34] or simply, in the absence of equivocation, Roussillon,[35] is a taxing country devoid of provincial states[36] (a provincial assembly, the provincial assembly of Roussillon,[37] is only created on August 15, 1787[38]). It forms at the same time a government[39] and an intendance,[40] and as a border province, it reports to the Secretary of State for War.[41] It has a sovereign jurisdiction, independent of the Parlement of Toulouse, the Roussillon Sovereign Council.

Currently, the name of Roussillon is still the most used to designate this territory, being found in the denomination of the former region Languedoc-Roussillon.

From now on, the territory is often subdivided into five traditional and natural comarques, unofficial: the Roussillon proper, the Vallespir, the Conflent, the Upper Cerdanya and the Capcir. Add the Fenouillèdes, Occitan section of the department.

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.tourism-occitania.co.uk/home/discover/occitania-in-a-nutshell/the-best-of-occitania
  2. 1 2 Décret n° 2016-1264 du 28 septembre 2016 portant fixation du nom et du chef-lieu de la région Occitanie (in French)
  3. ↑ "Populations légales 2012 des régions". Insee. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  4. ↑ "Nom Région LRMP : Quelques jours pour Se mobiliser, des décennies pour durer". Le Blog De L’occitan / Lo Blòg Occitan. France 3. 2016-05-14. Retrieved 2016-08-10.
  5. ↑ "Nom Région LRMP : Occitanie c'est validé, Carole Delga s'occupe des Catalans". Le Blog Politique. France 3. 2016-06-17. Retrieved 2016-08-10.
  6. ↑ Loi n° 2015-29 du 16 janvier 2015 Relative à la délimitation des régions, aux élections régionales et départementales et modifiant le calendrier électoral (in fr)
  7. ↑ "Résultats élections Régionales 2015". Le Monde (in French). Agence France-Presse. 14 December 2015. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
  8. ↑ "Le nom de ma région : Occitanie - La nouvelle Région - Région Occitanie / Pyrénées-Méditerranée". Regionlrmp.fr. Retrieved 2016-08-10.
  9. ↑ Minder, Raphael (8 September 2016). ""Don't Erase Us": French Catalans Fear Losing More Than a Region's Name". www.nytimes.com. The New York Times Company. Archived from the original on 8 February 2017. Retrieved 6 November 2017. We are the Catalans of the North and we want to continue to exist as such.
  10. ↑ "Thousands hold pro Catalan rally in southern France". www.yahoo.com. 10 September 2016. Archived from the original on 11 September 2016. Retrieved 6 November 2017. Organisers said as many as 10,000 people gathered -- police put the figure at some 7,800 people -- to demand their newly-merged region contain the words "Pays catalan" (Catalan land).
  11. ↑ "Définition de l’Occitanie", website of the town of Agen.
  12. ↑ Occitània with a grave accent on à according to the classical norm. The variant Occitania * - without accent - is considered incorrect. See the normative grammar of Alibert (p. Viii) and the recommendations of the Conselh de la Lenga Occitana (p. 101).
  13. ↑ Writing according to mistralian graph.
  14. ↑ Malcom Todd (2004). The Early Germans. The peoples of Europe (second revised and expanded ed.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 139 to 171; Chapter 7: The Gothics kingdoms. ISBN 978-1-4051-1714-2.
  15. ↑ Michel Zimmermann (1992). Southern societies around the year 1000, directory of sources and documents commented (in French). Paris: CNRS éditions. ISBN 2222047153.
  16. ↑ Collective directed by André Armengaud and Robert Lafont (1979). History of Occitanie - by a team of historians. Paris: Hachette. ISBN 2010060393.
  17. ↑ Map of the Roman Empire circa 400 CE
  18. ↑ Julien Bellarbre, The Aquitaine nation in the monastic historiography of the South of the Loire (8th-12th centuries)", Journal of the French Institute of History in Germany [Online], 6 | 2014, posted on December 31, 2014.
  19. ↑ Map of the Visigoth Kingdom
  20. ↑ Pierre Bec, The Occitan Language, Publisher Presses universitaires de France, Paris, 1986, pp. 3.
  21. ↑ "Occitanie", site of the Lot et Garonne County Council [without hyphen]
  22. ↑ "Definition of Occitanie", site of the City of Agen
  23. ↑ Rainer Babel, Jean-Marie Moeglin (1997). "Identité régionale et conscience nationale en France et en Allemagne du Moyen Âge à l'époque moderne". actes du colloque organisé par l'université Paris XII – Val-de-Marne, l'Institut universitaire de France et l'Institut historique allemand à l'université Paris XII et à la fondation Singer-Polignac les 6 octobre 1993, 7 octobre 1993 et 8 octobre 1993 (first ed.). Sigmaringen: Thorbecke. ISBN 978-3-7995-7340-5. Retrieved March 15, 2016. .
  24. 1 2 3 4 Paul Ourliac (1968). Sur une province française. Journal des savants. pp. 190–195.
  25. 1 2 3 4 Jean Guérout (1967). Henri Gilles. Les États de Languedoc au XV. Toulouse, Édouard Privat, 1965. In-8o, 363 p., couverture illustrée. (Bibliothèque méridionale, 2e série, XL.). Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes (in French). 125.
  26. 1 2 Henry Gilles (1965). The States of Languedoc at 15th c. Toulouse: Éditions Privat.
  27. 1 2 Raymond Cazelles (January 1982). Société politique, noblesse et couronne sous Jean le Bon et Charles V (in French) (first ed.). Geneva and Paris: Droz (published with the help of National Center for Scientific Research). ISBN 978-2-600-04531-5. Archived from the original on 2016-03-17.
  28. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "county of Foix". Larousse Encyclopedia Online (in French). Éditions Larousse.
  29. ↑ Guy Antonetti (2000). "Les princes étrangers". État et société en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe s. By Jean-Pierre Bardet, Dominique Dinet, Jean-Pierre Poussou and Marie-Catherine Vignal (monograph) (in French). Paris: Presses de l'université Paris-Sorbonne. ISBN 978-2-84050-151-0. .
  30. ↑ France. Viguerie du Roussillon BNF 12494240r.
  31. ↑ France. Viguerie de Conflent et Capcir BNF 12494275d.
  32. ↑ France. Viguerie de Cerdagne BNF 12494237v.
  33. ↑ "Rosselló i Cerdanya County" (in Catalan). Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana online. .
  34. ↑ Roussillon, Province of (France; 1659- 1790) BNF 153258873.
  35. ↑ Roussillon (Pyrénées-Orientales) BNF 11940604q.
  36. ↑ Vincent Adoumié (January 23, 2013). Les régions françaises (in French) (2nd revised and expanded ed.). Paris: Hachette supérieur. ISBN 978-2-01-140018-5.
  37. ↑ France. Assemblée provinciale du Roussillon BNF 124999479.
  38. ↑ Règlement fait par le Roi [en Conseil] sur la formation et la composition des assemblées qui auront lieu dans la province de Roussillon (Versailles, 15 août 1787). Paris: Imprimerie royale. 1787. .
  39. ↑ France. Gouvernement de Roussillon BNF 11685874z.
  40. ↑ Lucien Bély (September 10, 2015). Dictionnaire Louis XIV (first ed.). Paris: Éditions Robert Laffont. ISBN 978-2-221-12482-6. .
  41. ↑
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