Occitan is or has been spoken in a territory now called Occitania, which covers
approximately the southern third of France. This land has never been unified by
political means through the whole history, it is rather defined by the use of
the Occitan language(see map below).
More precisely, Occitania contains the french 'régions':
Limousin, Auvergne, Midi-Pyrénées, Languedoc-Roussillon (except the
Pyrénées Orientales département, which is Northern Catalonia), Aquitaine
(except the western half of the Pyrénées Atlantiques département, which
is the french Pays Basque) and Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur. Some Piemont
(Italy) villages, just over the French border also claim now being
occitan, and the 'Val d'Aran' spanish valley (upper valley of the river
Garonne) is also an occitan-speaking area (actually, the only area where
Occitan managed to be recognized as official Language, together with
Spanish and Catalan).
In France, it has recently been recognized as a 'langue régionale', and is
taught as a optional subject in secondary schools.
GEOGRAPHIC DOMAIN
