Catalan language in the context of "Northern Catalonia"

Andorra, officially the Principality of Andorra, is a landlocked country on the Iberian Peninsula, in the eastern Pyrenees in Southwestern Europe, bordered by France to the north and Spain to the south. Believed to have been created by Charlemagne, Andorra was ruled by the count of Urgell until 988, when it was transferred to the Diocese of Urgell. The present principality was formed by a charter in 1278. It is currently headed by two co-princes: the Bishop of Urgell in Catalonia, Spain, and the president of France. Its capital and largest city is Andorra la Vella.

Andorra is the sixth-smallest state in Europe, with an area of 468 square kilometres (181 sq mi) and a population of approximately 87,486. The Andorran people are a Romance ethnic group closely related to Catalans. Andorra is the world's 16th-smallest country by land and 11th-smallest by population. Its capital, Andorra la Vella, is the highest capital city in Europe, at an elevation of 1,023 metres (3,356 feet) above sea level. The official language is Catalan, but Spanish, Portuguese, and French are also commonly spoken.

A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term family is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics analogous to a family tree, or to phylogenetic trees of taxa used in evolutionary taxonomy. Linguists thus describe the daughter languages within a language family as being genetically related. The divergence of a proto-language into daughter languages typically occurs through geographical separation, with different regional dialects of the proto-language undergoing different language changes and thus becoming distinct languages over time.

One well-known example of a language family is the Romance languages, including Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, Romansh, and many others, all of which are descended from Vulgar Latin. The Romance family itself is part of the larger Indo-European family, which includes many other languages native to Europe and South Asia, all believed to have descended from a common ancestor known as Proto-Indo-European.

The Balearic Islands are an archipelago in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago forms a province and autonomous community of Spain, with Palma de Mallorca being its capital and largest city.

Formerly part of the Kingdom of Mallorca, the islands were made a province in the 19th century provincial division, which in 1983 received a Statute of Autonomy. In its later reform of 2007, the Statute designates the Balearic Islands as one of the nationalities of Spain. The official languages of the Balearic Islands are Catalan and Spanish.

Sardinia (/sɑːrˈdɪniə/ sar-DIN-ee-ə; Sardinian: Sardigna [saɾˈdiɲːa]; Italian: Sardegna [sarˈdeɲɲa] ), officially the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, is the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea after Sicily, and one of the twenty regions of Italy. It is located 200 km west of the Italian Peninsula, 200 km north of Tunisia, and 16.45 km south of the French island of Corsica. Sardinia is one five Italian regions with statutory domestic autonomy. It is divided into six provinces and two metropolitan cities. Cagliari is the capital and largest city, followed by Sassari. It has over 1.5 million inhabitants as of 2025.

Sardinia's indigenous language and the Algherese dialect of Catalan are recognized by both regional and national law as two of Italy's twelve official linguistic minorities, albeit gravely endangered; regional law provides some degree of protection and recognition of the island's other minority languages: the Corsican-influenced Sassarese and Gallurese, and Tabarchino Ligurian.

The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languages are a group of Romance languages that developed on the Iberian Peninsula, an area consisting primarily of Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Andorra and French Catalonia. They are today more commonly separated into West Iberian, East Iberian (Catalan/Valencian) and Southern Iberian (Andalusi Romance, also known as Mozarabic/Haketia) language groups. East Iberian's classification is a subject of ongoing scholarly debate, as some argue that the Occitano-Romance languages, composed of Occitan along with Catalan/Valencian, are better classified as Gallo-Romance languages.

Evolved from the Vulgar Latin of Iberia, the most widely spoken Iberian Romance languages are Spanish and Portuguese, followed by Catalan-Valencian-Balear and Galician. These languages also have their own regional and local varieties. Based on mutual intelligibility, Dalby counts seven "outer" languages, or language groups: Galician-Portuguese, Spanish, Asturleonese, "Wider"-Aragonese, "Wider"-Catalan, Provençal+Lengadocian, and "Wider"-Gascon.

Spaniards, or Spanish people, are an ethnic group native to Spain. Genetically and ethnolinguistically, Spaniards belong to the broader Southern and Western European populations, exhibiting a high degree of continuity with other Indo-European-derived ethnic groups in the region. Spain is also home to a diverse array of national and regional identities, shaped by its complex history. These include various languages and dialects, many of which are direct descendants of Latin, the language imposed during Roman rule. Among them, Spanish (also known as Castilian) is the most widely spoken and the only official language across the entire country.

Commonly spoken regional languages include, most notably, the sole surviving indigenous language of Iberia, Basque, as well as other Latin-descended Romance languages like Spanish itself, Catalan and Galician. Many populations outside Spain have ancestors who emigrated from Spain and share elements of a Hispanic culture. The most notable of these comprise Hispanic America in the Western Hemisphere.

The Kingdom of Aragon (Aragonese: Reino d'Aragón; Catalan: Regne d'Aragó; Latin: Regnum Aragoniae; Spanish: Reino de Aragón) was a medieval and early modern kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula, corresponding to the modern-day autonomous community of Aragon, in Spain. It became a part of the larger Crown of Aragon, which also included other territories—the Principality of Catalonia (which included the former Catalan Counties), the Kingdom of Valencia, the Kingdom of Majorca, and other possessions that are now part of France, Italy, and Greece—that were also under the rule of the King of Aragon, but were administered separately from the Kingdom of Aragon.

In 1479, upon John II of Aragon's death, the crowns of Aragon and Castile were united to form the nucleus of modern Spain. The Aragonese lands retained autonomous parliamentary and administrative institutions, such as the Corts. The arrangement remained until the Nueva Planta decrees, promulgated between 1707 and 1715 by Philip V of Spain in the aftermath of the War of the Spanish Succession, centralised power in Spain. However, the title "King of Aragon" would continue to be used by the centralised Spanish crown.

The mistral (French: [mistʁal]; Catalan: mestral; Corsican: maestrale; Croatian: maestral; Greek: μαΐστρος; Italian: maestrale; Maltese: majjistral) is a strong, cold, northwesterly wind that blows from southern France into the Gulf of Lion in the northern Mediterranean. It produces sustained winds averaging 50 km/h (30 mph), sometimes reaching 100 km/h (60 mph). It can last for several days. Periods of the wind exceeding 30 km/h (19 mph; 8.3 m/s; 16 kn) for more than sixty-five hours have been reported. It is most common in the winter and spring, and strongest in the transition between the two seasons.

It affects the northeast of the plain of Languedoc and Provence to the east of Toulon, where it is felt as a strong west wind. It has a major influence all along the Mediterranean coast of France, and often causes sudden storms in the Mediterranean between Corsica and the Balearic Islands.

The 1992 Summer Olympics (Spanish: Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1992, Catalan: Jocs Olímpics d'estiu de 1992), officially the Games of the XXV Olympiad (Spanish: Juegos de la XXV Olimpiada, Catalan: Jocs de la XXV Olimpíada) and officially branded as Barcelona '92, were an international multi-sport event held from 25 July to 9 August 1992 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Beginning in 1994, the International Olympic Committee decided to hold the Summer and Winter Olympics in alternating even-numbered years. The 1992 Summer and Winter Olympics were the last games to be staged in the same year. These games were the second and last two consecutive Olympic games to be held in Western Europe after the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, held five months earlier. It is also the second Olympic Games to be held in a Spanish-speaking country, following the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.

The 1992 Games received universal acclaim, with the organisation, volunteers, sportsmanship, and Spanish public being lauded in the international media. Some media describe the Barcelona Games as one of the best Olympics ever. The Games showed a renewed image of a democratic Spain and projected Barcelona and Catalonia to the world. Owing to the Games, the city of Barcelona was remarkably transformed. All the venues are still active, and the legacy of the 1992 Games was taken as an example for future Olympic events, such as London 2012.