La Franja in the context of "Bajo Aragón-Caspe/Baix Aragó-Casp"

Catalans (Catalan, French and Occitan: catalans; Spanish: catalanes; Italian: catalani; Sardinian: cadelanos or catalanos) are a Romance-speaking ethnic group native to Catalonia, who speak Catalan. The current official category of "Catalans" is that of the citizens of Catalonia, a nationality and autonomous community in Spain and the inhabitants of the Roussillon historical region in Southern France, today the Pyrénées Orientales department, also called Northern Catalonia and Pays Catalan in French.

Some authors also extend the word "Catalans" to include all people from areas in which Catalan is spoken, namely those from Andorra, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, eastern Aragon, and the city of Alghero in Sardinia.

Catalan (català) is a Western Romance language. It is the official language of Andorra and the official language of three autonomous communities in eastern Spain: Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community, where it is called Valencian (valencià). It has semi-official status in the Italian municipality of Alghero, and it is spoken in the Pyrénées-Orientales department of France and in two further areas in eastern Spain: the eastern strip of Aragon and the Carche area in the Region of Murcia. The Catalan-speaking territories are often called the Països Catalans or "Catalan Countries".

The language evolved from Vulgar Latin in the Middle Ages around the eastern Pyrenees. It became the language of the Principality of Catalonia and the kingdoms of Valencia and Mallorca, being present throughout the Mediterranean as the main language of the Crown of Aragon. It was replaced by Spanish as a language of government and literature in the 1700s, but nineteenth century Spain saw a Catalan literary revival, culminating in the early 1900s. With the end of Franco dictatorship (1975) and its repressive measures against the language, Catalan entered a relatively successful process of re-normalization between the 1980s and the 2000s. However, during the 2010s, it experienced signs of decline in social use, diglossia and the re-growth of discrimination cases.

The Catalan Countries (Catalan: Països Catalans, Eastern Catalan: [pəˈizus kətəˈlans]) refers to the territories where the Catalan language is spoken. They include the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, Valencian Community, and parts of Aragon (La Franja) and Murcia (Carche), as well as the Principality of Andorra, the department of Pyrénées-Orientales (aka Northern Catalonia, including Cerdanya, Rosselló, and Vallespir) in France, and the city of Alghero in Sardinia (Italy). It is often used as a sociolinguistic term to describe the cultural-linguistic area where Catalan is spoken. In the context of the Catalan independence movement, the term is sometimes used in a more restricted way to refer to just Catalonia, Northern Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands. 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. Parts of Valencia (Spanish) and Catalonia (Occitan) are not Catalan-speaking.

The "Catalan Countries" have been at the centre of both cultural and political projects since the late 19th century. Its mainly cultural dimension became increasingly politically charged by the late 1960s and early 1970s, as Francoism began to die out in Spain, and what had been a cultural term restricted to connoisseurs of Catalan philology became a divisive issue during the Spanish Transition period, most acrimoniously in Valencia during the 1980s. Modern linguistic and cultural projects include the Institut Ramon Llull and the Fundació Ramon Llull, which are run by the governments of the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Andorra, the Department Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales, the city council of Alghero and the Network of Valencian Cities. Politically, it involves a pan-nationalist project to unite the Catalan-speaking territories of Spain and France, often in the context of the independence movement in Catalonia, but it is also simply a project for cultural unity, so that the linguistic area can have barriers to communication and interchange removed. The political project of independence under Catalonia does not currently enjoy wide support, particularly outside Catalonia, where some sectors view it as an expression of pancatalanism. Linguistic unity is widely recognized, except for the followers of a political movement known as Blaverism, which understands Valencian as a different language.

Ponent, also known as the Lleida region following the vegueries law, is the westernmost of the eight regions (vegueries) defined by the Regional Plan of Catalonia. It has an area of 5,586 km, and 365,289 inhabitants as of 2022.

The region includes the comarques of Segrià, Garrigues, Noguera, Pla d'Urgell, Segarra and Urgell. Within Catalonia, it borders to the north with Alt Pirineu, to the east with Central Catalonia, Penedès and Camp de Tarragona, and to the south with Terres de l'Ebre. Outside of administrative terms, the name is sometimes used including the Aragonese comarques of Baix Cinca and La Llitera, which are part of the Catalan-speaking territory in Aragon known as Franja de Ponent.

Ribagorza (Spanish: [riβaˈɣoɾθa], Aragonese: [ɾiβaˈɣoɾθa]) or Ribagorça (Western Catalan: [riβaˈɣɔɾsa]; French: Ribagorce) is a comarca (administrative subdivision) in Aragon, Spain, situated in the north-east of the province of Huesca. It borders the French département of the Haute-Garonne to the north and Catalonia (the comarques of Val d'Aran, Alta Ribagorça, Pallars Jussà, and Noguera) to the east. Within Aragon its neighboring comarcas are Sobrarbe, Somontano de Barbastro, and La Litera. It roughly corresponds to the Aragonese part of the medieval County of Ribagorza. The administrative capital of Ribagorza is Graus, although the historical capital of the county was at Benabarre.

The Ribagorçan dialect is a transitional Aragonese–Catalan dialect spoken in the western part of the comarca. Municipalities in the eastern part, bordering Catalonia, are part of La Franja, a geolinguistic area, where the local language is a variety of Catalan. However, Aragonese and Catalan form a dialect continuum here and the geographical limit of both languages cannot be drawn in a clear-cut manner.

Catalans (Catalan, French and Occitan: catalans; Spanish: catalanes; Italian: catalani; Sardinian: cadelanos or catalanos) are a Romance-speaking ethnic group native to Catalonia, who speak Catalan. The current official category of "Catalans" is that of the citizens of Catalonia, a nationality and autonomous community in Spain and the inhabitants of the Roussillon historical region in Southern France, today the Pyrénées Orientales department, also called Northern Catalonia and Pays Catalan in French.

Some authors also extend the word "Catalans" to include all people from all the areas where Catalan is spoken, namely those from Andorra, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, eastern Aragon, and the city of Alghero in Sardinia.

Bajo Aragón (Spanish: [ˈbaxo aɾaˈɣon]; Aragonese: Baxo Aragón; Catalan: Baix Aragó), or Lower Aragon, is an administrative comarca in eastern central Aragon, Spain. It was first established in 1999. It has a population of 29,358 (2007) and an area of 1.304,2 km. The seat of the comarca is in Alcañiz. It is located in Teruel Province, in the transitional area between the Iberian System and the Ebro Valley.

The municipalities of Aguaviva, Belmonte de San José, La Cañada de Verich, La Cerollera, La Codoñera, La Ginebrosa and Torrevelilla belong to the Catalan-speaking strip in eastern Aragon known as La Franja.