AND MARIA DEL MAR VANRELL 2.1 Introduction 2.1.1 Geographical distribution of the Catalan language Catalan is a Romance language that is spoken by about 10 million people in a region that lies within four adjacent European states, Andorra, Italy, France, and Spain. 1 Fig. 2.1 shows a map of the geographical areas where Catalan is spoken, subdivided into its major and traditionally accepted dialects (Veny 1982): Central Catalan and Northwestern Catalan (spoken in Catalonia, Aragon, and Andorra), Valencian Catalan (Valencian region), Balearic Catalan (Balearic Islands), Northern Catalan (in the Roussillon region of southern France, roughly equivalent to the current département of Pyrénées-Orientales), and Algherese Catalan (in the city of l'Alguer, Sardinia). Breaking down the total number of roughly 10 million Catalan speakers by geographic area, Catalonia and the Valencian region provide the great majority, with 5,703,000 and 2,952,000 respectively, followed by the Balearic community with 735,000 speakers. The remaining territories provide much smaller figures, with 61,000 speakers in Andorra, 142,000 speakers in southern France, and 24,000 in the city of l'Alguer (Sardinia, Italy) (data from Pons and Sorolla 2009). With respect to its legal status, Catalan is the official language in Andorra; within Spain it is co-official 1 The data comes from the Enquesta dels usos lingüístics a Catalunya 2003, coordinated by J. Torres and updated by Pons and Sorolla (2009) and Querol (2010).
