Discover

'Western Francia' was the land under the control of Charles the Bald after the Treaty of Verdun of 843, which divided the Carolingian Empire of the Franks into an East, West, and Middle. It is the precursor of modern France. It was known variously as 'Francia Occidentalis' and the 'Kingdom of the West Franks'.
It was divided into the following great fiefs: Aquitaine, Brittany, Burgundy, Catalonia, Flanders, Gascony, Gothia (Septimania), the Île-de-France, and Toulouse.
After 987, the kingdom came to be known as France, because the new ruling dynasty (the Capetians) were originally dukes of the Île-de-France.