Rosselló (Catalan: [rusəˈʎo] ) or Roussillon (French: [ʁusijɔ̃] ) is a historical and cultural Catalan comarca (county) of Northern Catalonia (France). Its capital and most populated city is Perpignan (Catalan: Perpinyà).
It borders the counties of Alt Empordà (Southern Catalonia) and Vallespir to the south and Conflent to the west, as well as the Occitan region of Languedoc to the north and north-west.
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Northern Catalonia, North Catalonia or French Catalonia is the Catalan-speaking and cultural territory ceded to France by Spain through the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 in exchange for France's effective renunciation to the protection over Catalonia in the context of the Reapers' War (1640–1659). The area corresponds roughly to the modern French département of the Pyrénées-Orientales which was historically part of the Principality of Catalonia since the old County of Barcelona, and remained part of it during the times of the Crown of Aragon and the Habsburg-ruled Monarchy of Spain, until they were separated and given to the Kingdom of France by the Crown of Spain.
The equivalent term in French, Catalogne du Nord, is used nowadays, although less often than the more politically neutral Roussillon (Catalan: Rosselló); Roussillon, though, historically did not include Vallespir, Conflent and Cerdagne (Cerdanya). The term Pays Catalan (País Català), "Catalan Country", is sometimes used.
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.
Conflent (French pronunciation: [kɔ̃flɑ̃]; Catalan pronunciation: [kumˈflen]) is a historical Catalan comarca of Northern Catalonia, now part of the French department of Pyrénées-Orientales. In the Middle Ages it comprised the County of Conflent.
The capital of this pays is Prades (Catalan: Prada de Conflent), and it borders the pays of Capcir, Rosselló, Vallespir, Alta Cerdanya and Ripollès, and the Occitan-speaking pays of Fenolleda.It roughly corresponds to the valley of the Têt River (Catalan: Tet) and its neighbourhoods between Rodès and Mont-Louis (Catalan: Montlluís). Conflent is dominated by the Canigou (Catalan: Canigó) mountain.