Southern France
region of France
Southern France, also known as the south of France or colloquially in French as le Midi, is a geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin, Spain, the Mediterranean Sea and Italy. It includes southern Nouvelle-Aquitaine in the west, Occitania in the centre, the southern parts of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in the northeast, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur in the southeast, as well as the island of Corsica in the southeast. Southern France is generally considered part of southern Europe because of its association with the Mediterranean Sea.
The colloquial French name for the region, le Midi, is derived from an Old French compound composed of mi ("middle") and di ("day"), meaning literally "midday". Thus, the term is comparable in both origin and meaning to Mezzogiorno, which indicates southern Italy, and Romanian Miazăzi which is a synonym for south – the direction of the Sun at "midday".
Geography
The area corresponds in large part to Occitania in southern Europe, the historical and cultural region in which Occitan (French: langue d'oc), as distinct from the langues d'oïl of northern France, was the predominant language. Despite being part of Occitania, the regions of Auvergne and Limousin are not normally considered part of southern France. The largest cities of southern France are Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nice and Montpellier. The Pyrenees and French Alps are also located in the area, in respectively its southwestern and eastern parts. Corsica, which is south of Continental France and just north of Sardinia, Italy, may also be included.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Southern France” as region of France. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as region of France. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1237299. The Library of Congress control number is sh85051520. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Southern France” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.