Catalan Countries

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This article is about the Catalan Countries. For other uses of the term Catalonia, please see Catalonia (disambiguation).

The Catalan Countries[1] (in Catalan: Països Catalans, abbreviated to PPCC) are a cultural territory of southwestern Europe where Catalan is the native language and where Catalan culture is autochthonous. Some activists promote the name Catalonia (Catalunya in Catalan) as a desirable synonym for 'Catalan Countries'[2] but this is not unanimously accepted, since 'Catalonia' is also the name of a region within the Catalan Countries.

The Catalan Countries are split into several states (Spain, France, Andorra and possibly Italy). They include approximately the following territories:

The exact definition of the Catalan Countries varies according to the criteria followed:

  • According to a strict linguistic criterion, some non-Catalan-speaking areas should not be included in the Catalan Countries.[3] These are:
    • two Occitan-speaking areas: the Fenouillèdes (in the Pyrénées-Orientales) and Aran Valley (in the official region of Catalonia),
    • a Spanish-speaking area located in the west of the Valencian Community.
  • However, according to an administrative criterion, some Catalan activists think that those Occitan- and Spanish-speaking areas should be seen as parts of the Catalan Countries, but not the enclave of Alghero which they consider too remote.[4]

The Catalan Countries have 12.8 million inhabitants according to the first criterion, but 13.5 million according to the second. Their area is approximately 70 000 km².

Notes

  1. The second capital letter in Catalan Countries reflects the native, original form, Països Catalans, which is considered as a proper name in the Catalan language (see Enciclopèdia Catalana). Standard English does not use a capital on common nouns such as country except when they are included in proper names.
  2. For instance, in Josep Guia's book: És molt senzill, digueu-li Catalunya (1985, Llibres del segle, Collection "Què us diré" 22).
  3. Such a view is supported, for instance, by Pol Sureda in the website El Talp.
  4. Such a view is supported by the Enciclopèdia Catalana.