SOUTHERN FRANCE

'Southern France' (or the 'South of France'), colloquially known as 'Le Midi', is a loosely defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Gironde, Spain, the Mediterranean Sea, Italy, and Switzerland south of the Jura. The region includes:

★ Aquitaine

★ Midi-Pyrénées

★ Languedoc-Roussillon

★ Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur

★ Corsica

★ Rhone-Alpes

★ Auvergne

★ Limousin
This area corresponds in large part to Occitania; that to say, the territory in which Occitan (the ''langue d'oc'') – as distinct from the ''langues d'oïl'' of northern France – was the historically dominant language.
The name ''le Midi'' derives from ''mi'' (middle) and ''di'' (day) in Old French. The midday was synonymous with the direction of south, because in France (and the rest of the north Hemisphere), the sun moves southward at noon. The synonymy exists in Middle French as well, where ''meridien'' means both "midday" and "south."

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See also

See also

★ France

★ Northern Basque Country

★ Northern Catalonia

★ Occitania

★ Vichy France

★ Southern Europe