The Franks conquered the region after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, and the local Romance populations became integrated within the County of Provence, with a period of independence as a maritime republic (1108–1176).

On 25 October 1561, following the Edict of Rivoli, Italian replaced Latin as the language for drafting the official documents of the County of Nice.

The first time in 1718, when Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia repurchased the upper Varo valley with Entraunes and Saint-Martin-d'Entraunes in exchange for municipality of Le Mas, and a second time with the Treaty of Turin of 24 March 1760, with which the Savoys ceded Gattières and the right bank of the Esterone river to France, in exchange for the areas of Guglielmi and La Penna, which passed to Savoyard possessions.

In 1789, Nice was a counter-revolutionary center; the Army of the Midi of the young French Republic, under the command of General Jacques Bernard d'Anselme, entered the city on 29 September 1792.

On 23 April 1814 the county returned under the control of the King Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia, while the Principality of Monaco passed from the French to the Sardinian protectorate.

King Victor-Emmanuel II, on 1 April 1860, solemnly asked the population to accept the change of sovereignty, in the name of Italian unity, and the cession was ratified by a regional referendum.

[2] This was the result of a masterful operation of information control by the French and Piedmontese governments, to influence the outcome of the vote in relation to the decisions already taken.

The case of Levens is emblematic: the same official sources recorded, faced with only 407 voters, 481 votes cast, naturally almost all in favor of joining France.

The French government sent 10,000 soldiers to Nice, closed the Italian newspaper Il Diritto di Nizza and imprisoned several demonstrators.

On 13 February, Garibaldi was not allowed to speak at the French parliament meeting in Bordeaux to ask for the reunification of Nice to the newborn Italian unitary state, and he resigned from his post as deputy.

[11] The failure of Vespers led to the expulsion of the last pro-Italian intellectuals from Nice, such as Luciano Mereu or Giuseppe Bres, who were expelled or deported.

However, when the Italians signed the Armistice of Cassibile with the Allies, German troops invaded the region on 8 September 1943, and initiated brutal raids.

Thereafter, a quarter of the Niçard Italians living in that mountainous area moved to Piedmont and Liguria in Italy (mainly from the Roya Valley and Tenda).

Nevertheless, the term County of Nice (Countea de Nissa in Niçard dialect) continues to be in use to identify the territory as a distinct cultural and historical region, particularly to distinguish it from the neighboring Provence.