Southern France (or the south of France), colloquially known as le Midi, is defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin, Spain, the Mediterranean, and Italy. The Midi includes:
- Aquitaine
- Midi-Pyrénées
- Languedoc-Roussillon
- Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
- Corsica
- Rhône-Alpes (the Southern parts)
- Poitou-Charentes (the Southern parts)
This area corresponds in large part to Occitania; that to say, the territory in which Occitan (French: langue d'oc) — as distinct from the langues d'oïl of northern France — was historically the dominant language. The regions of Auvergne and Limousin are also a part of Occitania but are not normally referred to as southern France.
The term Midi derives from mi (middle) and di (day) in Old French; compare Mezzogiorno, the south of Italy. The time of midday was synonymous with the direction of south because in France, as in all of the Northern Hemisphere, the sun is in the south at noon. The synonymy existed in Middle French as well, where meridien can refer to both midday and south.
Read more about Southern France: Films Set in The South of France
Other articles related to "southern france, france":
... Their success later continued in southern France and then at the France-Italian border ... On the December 5, 1944, in the town of Menton in southern France, the First Special Service Force was disbanded ... Anzio, Rome, Advance to the Tiber, Italy 1943–44, Southern France and Northwest Europe ...
... The proximity of Al-Andalus, Crusaders coming back to France, or trade in the Mediterranean may explain such monuments ... For instance, the "lantern of the Moors" in Vergèze, Southern France, looks like the chimneys of the Bakhchisaray Palace, the Palace of the Crimean Tatars in Crimea ... The "lantern of the Dead" of Carlux, Southern France, is called a "Saracen chimney" too ...
... When the Allied invasion of Southern France (Operation Dragoon) took place, Army Group G had eleven divisions with which to hold France south of the Loire ... After the successful Allied invasion of Southern France, on the 17/18 of August the German Armed Forces High Command (OKW) ordered Army Group G, with the ...
... While historically it has been assumed that in southern France the associations formed to build bridges were commonly religious orders living under vows, this has been proved to ... The brotherhoods in southern France seem rather to have been guilds or confraternities, or at most to have been organized similarly to a third order, wearing a habit with a distinctive ...
Famous quotes containing the words france and/or southern:
“Springtime for Hitler and Germany,
Winter for France and Poland.”
—Mel Brooks (b. 1926)
“... as a result of generations of betrayal, it’s nearly impossible for Southern Negroes to trust a Southern white. No matter what he does or what he suffers, a white liberal is never established beyond suspicion in the hearts of the minority.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 10 (1962)