[1][2] They include the Spanish regions of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, Valencian Community, and parts of Aragon (La Franja) and Murcia (Carche),[3] as well as the Principality of Andorra, the department of Pyrénées-Orientales (aka Northern Catalonia, including Cerdagne, Roussillon, and Vallespir) in France, and the city of Alghero in Sardinia (Italy).

[7][8][9] The Catalan Countries do not correspond to any present or past political or administrative unit, though most of the area belonged to the Crown of Aragon in the Middle Ages.

[10][11][12][13] Linguistic unity is widely recognized,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20] except for the followers of a political movement known as Blaverism,[21] which understands Valencian as a different language.

As a linguistic term, Països Catalans is used in a similar fashion to the English Anglosphere, the French Francophonie, the Portuguese Lusofonia or the Spanish Hispanophone territories.

These, based on the linguistic fact, argue for the existence of a common national identity that would surpass the limits of each territory covered by this concept and would apply also to the remaining ones.

Its main objective is to promote the Catalan language and culture abroad in all its variants, as well as the works of writers, artists, scientists and researchers of the regions which are part of it.

[38][39][40] Many in Spain see the concept of the Països Catalans as regional exceptionalism, counterpoised to a centralizing Spanish and French national identity.

Others see it as an attempt by a Catalonia-proper-centered nationalism to lay a hegemonic claim to Valencia, the Balearic Islands or Roussillon, where the prevailing feeling is that they have their own respective historical personalities, not necessarily related to Catalonia's.

[41] The concept has connotations that have been perceived as problematic and controversial when establishing relations between Catalonia and other areas of the Catalan linguistic domain.

[45][46] The pro-Catalan independence author Germà Bel called it an "inappropriate and unfortunate expression lacking any historic, political or social basis",[47] while Xosé Manoel Núñez Seixas spoke of the difficulties in uniting a historicist concept linked to common membership of the Crown of Aragon with a fundamentally linguistic construct.

[51] There are other parties which sporadically use this term in its cultural or linguistical sense, not prioritizing a national-political unity, as in the case of the Bloc Nacionalista Valencià.

Some of the most vocal defenders or promoters of the "Catalan Countries" concept (such as Joan Fuster, Josep Guia or Vicent Partal) were Valencian.

Various Valencian right-wing politicians (originally from Unión de Centro Democrático) fearing what was seen as an annexation attempt from Catalonia, fueled a violent Anti-Catalanist campaign against local supporters of the concept of the Països Catalans, which even included a handful of unsuccessful attacks with explosives against authors perceived as flagships of the concept, such as Joan Fuster or Manuel Sanchis i Guarner.

The concept's revival during this period was behind the formation of the fiercely opposed and staunch anti-Catalan blaverist movement, led by Unió Valenciana, which, in turn, significantly diminished during the 1990s and the 2000s as the Països Catalans controversy slowly disappeared from the Valencian political arena.

[56] As for the other territories, there are no political parties even mentioning the Països Catalans as a public issue neither in Andorra, nor in la Franja, Carche or Alghero.

Therefore, if it were the case that the Països Catalans idea gained a majority democratic support in future elections, a constitutional amendment would still be needed for those parts of the Països Catalans lying in Spain to create a common legal representative body, even though in the addenda to the Constitution there is a clause allowing an exception to this rule in the case of Navarre, which can join the Basque Country should the people choose to do so.

[62] Jordi Vera, a CDC councillor in Perpignan, has said that his party favoured closer trade and transport relationships with Catalonia, and that he believed Catalan independence would improve the prospects of that happening, but that secession from France was "not on the agenda".

This new approach would refer to the Catalan Countries as a more or less unitary nation with a shared culture which had been divided by the course of history, but which should logically be politically reunited.