Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse in the context of "Count of Toulouse"

The count of Toulouse (Occitan: comte de Tolosa, French: comte de Toulouse) was the ruler of Toulouse during the 8th to 13th centuries. Originating as vassals of the Frankish kings, the hereditary counts ruled the city of Toulouse and its surrounding county from the late 9th century until 1270. The counts and other family members were also at various times counts of Quercy, Rouergue, Albi, and Nîmes, and sometimes margraves (military defenders of the Holy Roman Empire) of Septimania and Provence. Count Raymond IV founded the Crusader state of Tripoli, and his descendants were also counts there.They reached the zenith of their power during the 11th and 12th centuries, but after the Albigensian Crusade the county fell to the kingdom of France, nominally in 1229 and de facto in 1271.

Later the title was revived for Louis Alexandre, Count of Toulouse, a bastard of Louis XIV (1678–1737).

Bertrand of Toulouse (or Bertrand of Tripoli) (died 1112) was count of Toulouse, and was the first count of Tripoli to rule in Tripoli itself.

Bertrand was the eldest son of Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, and had ruled Toulouse since Raymond left on the First Crusade in 1095. He was, between 1098 and 1100, dispossessed by his cousin Philippa, Countess of Toulouse and her husband William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, who marched into Toulouse and captured it. They mortgaged it back later to Bertrand in 1100 to fund Duke William's expedition to the Holy Land. Bertrand officially became count of Toulouse when Raymond died in 1105, and in 1108 he travelled to Tripoli to take control there as well.