The territory was united in Roman times as the Seven Provinces (Latin: Septem Provinciae[2]) and in the Early Middle Ages (Aquitanica or the Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse,[3] or the share of Louis the Pious following Thionville divisio regnorum in 806[4]).

[23][24][25] The name Occitanie appeared in the Middle Ages on the basis of a geographical, linguistic and cultural concept, to designate the part of the French royal domain speaking the langue d’oc.

[45] The survey shows that the Occitan reality is defined by language for 95% of people, culture (94%), characterization by a common history (69%), an ethnic group (50%), a nation (20%).

[32] Occitania, as defined by the modern Occitan linguistic territory, covers most of the current Southern France, the Alpine valleys of the Western Piedmont, in Italy, Val d'Aran in Spain and Monaco[46][47] an area of approximately 190,000 km2.

[22] In a book written by experts in medieval history, are included in Occitania of the year 1000 both the provinces of the north (now mainly in Poitou-Charentes) and Catalonia (without the Balearic Islands and the Valencian country) – p.

According to Frédéric Mistral's dictionary "Treasury of Felibritge", the term Occitania is sometimes used by scholars to describe Southern France in general but mainly for the former province of Languedoc.

[83] From the mid-11th century, the teaching of the Corpus Juris Civilis taken shortly after Bologna in the universities of Toulouse, Montpellier, Avignon, Perpignan... will promote a massive renaissance of Roman Law in Occitania.

With regard to education: Pierre Goubert and Daniel Roche write, to explain the low literacy in Occitania in the 18th century, that there exists in these territories a confidence maintained in the old vulgar languages.

[87] In politics, many debates have also taken place around the expression Red Southern coined by Maurice Agulhon[88] to find out if the "pays d'oc" was more "republic" than the northern half of France.

Emmanuel Todd analyzing the regions that voted for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, calling himself a "Republican" in the 2012 presidential elections, declares that "what is obvious is his general inscription in the Occitan family[...] that loves vertical structures, the state or the church.

After the Second World War, the creation of the Institute of Occitan Studies was presided over by a resistant (at a time when the Felibritge like the SEO were tainted by lawsuits of collaboration), but above all its action in terms of linguistic reform, particularly its desire to adapt the classical norm to Provençal, marked a break with a large fraction of the Felibritge[98] François Fontan created the first overtly Occitan nationalist party in 1959.

Despite the historic and political dependencies between the 10th and 13th centuries that eventually led to the creation of a common Occitan-Catalan cultural environment during Middle Ages,[102] neither the Principality of Catalonia nor the Catalan Countries have ever been part of Occitania.

[102][104] The great defeat resulting from the Battle of Muret (1213) and the subsequent Treaty of Corbeil (1258) ratified the loss of Catalan influence in Occitania and its gradual replacement by the French dynasty of the House of Capet.

[109] Occitania includes the following regions: Occitan or langue d'oc (lenga d'òc) is a Latin-based Romance language in the same way as Spanish, Italian or French.

Occitania roughly covers a southern third of France (commonly known as Midi, including Monaco), the Occitan Valleys and Guardia Piemontese, in Italy, as well as the Val d'Aran, in Spain.

In the year 805 in Thionville, Charlemagne declared the partition of his empire into three autonomous territories along linguistic and cultural boundaries: what is now modern Occitania was to be formed from the reunion of a broader Provence and Aquitaine.

But despite measures such as this, a strong feeling of national identity against the French occupiers remained as Jean Racine wrote on a trip to Uzès in 1662: "What they call France here is the land beyond the Loire, which to them is a foreign country.

But from 1881 onwards, children who spoke Occitan at school were punished in accordance with minister Jules Ferry's recommendations; this led to a deprecation of the language known as la vergonha (the shaming).

Although not really a colony in a modern sense, there was an Occitan enclave in the County of Tripoli, founded in 1102 by Raymond IV of Toulouse during the Crusades north of Jerusalem.

At the end of the 17th century, Valdenses fleeing persecution in the Occitan valleys settled in Baden, Hesse, and Wurtemberg (modern Germany).

[123] In the 2017 Catalan regional election, the electors of the Val d'Aran voted mostly for "constitutionalists," parties which support continued union with Spain.

Major demonstrations in Carcassonne (2005 and 2009) and Béziers (2007) and the week-long Estivada festivals in Rodez (2006–2010) suggest that there is a revival of Occitan language and culture.

The Fédération des langues régionales pour l'enseignement public calculated the number of students in the Occitan language in October 2005 at 4,326.

Indeed, because of the size of Occitania and the great diversity of landscapes- from the mountaineering of the Pyrenees and the Alps, rivers and lakes, and finally the Mediterranean and Atlantic coast – it can be considered as a highly varied cuisine.

Some world-renowned traditional meals are Provençal ratatolha (ratatouille), alhòli (aioli) and adauba (Provençal stew), Niçard salada nissarda (Salad Niçoise) and pan banhat (Pan-bagnat), Limousin clafotís (clafoutis), Auvergnat aligòt (aligot), Languedocien caçolet (cassoulet), or again Gascon fetge gras (foie gras).

Occitania will therefore be defined on the map by the linguistic boundaries.Occitania is everywhere where one has, in France, "the accent of the South", to the except for the department of Pyrénées-Orientales, which is Catalan, Corsica and the Basque Country.

Finally, from La Mure to Besançon, and from Saint-Étienne to Friborg in Switzerland, there is an intermediate zone between Oc and Oïl; the Franco-Provençal area.

Thus, Occitan is spoken in ten historical provinces: Guyenne, Gascony, County Foix, Béarn, Limousin, Auvergne, Languedoc, Provence, Dauphiné (south) and Nice.

A process of northernization has allowed to read Occitan in transparency of the dialects of this region.Thus the great points of the ideal of medieval Occitan civilization were: "paratge" or feelings of equality, religious and racial tolerance, courtly love, Romanesque art and the emergence of class consciousness.Lou Felibrige es establi pèr garda longo-mai à la nacioun óucitano sa lengo, sis us, soun gàubi e tout ço que coustituïs soun eime naciounau.

The Occitan originality is well marked compared to the neighboring ethnic groups, and this in all points of view: racial (racial compound where blood O is more frequent than in France, than in Italy or in Catalonia, less predominant in Euskadi), origin of the population (Ligures, Iberians and Gauls, strong Latin contingent, weak Visigoth input); ethnopsychological; political (Aquitaine uprisings under the Carolingians, National State of the Counts of Toulouse, union of all "the people of our language" against the French invasion, then constant peasant uprisings in all provinces, independent states during the wars of religion: Marseille, Montauban and especially Béarn, Cévennes' War, Girondins autonomism, finally since the 19th century, constant opposition vote giving majorities called "left" or ensuring the success of what appeared momentarily as the more protesting (Poujadism, Mitterrand), cultural (from the civilization of the troubadours, called by Engels a pre-Renaissance to Mistral and our contemporary literature), finally (and some will say above all) demographic, economic and social: underdevelopment and relative regression with neighboring ethnic groups (Italy, Catalonia, Euskadi and especially France), formerly known as escape of capital and now non-use or plunder of our resources by France, numerical predominance of the class of small-owners.Arade, genti-homme de ceste Prouince OccitanieRaimond I count of Tholose or if Occitanie