County of Nice | ||||||||||
Comtat de Niça (Occitan) Contea di Nizza (Italian) Comté de Nice (French) Comitatus Nicaeensis (Latin) |
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The county inside modern France
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Capital | Nice | |||||||||
Languages | French, Italian, Occitan, Niçard dialect | |||||||||
Religion | Roman Catholic, Reformed Church of France, Judaism | |||||||||
Government | Not specified | |||||||||
History | ||||||||||
• | Union with Savoy | 1388 | ||||||||
• | French conquest | 1796 | ||||||||
• | Savoyard restoration | 1814 | ||||||||
• | Perfect Fusion | 1848 | ||||||||
Area | ||||||||||
• | 1751 | 4,000 km² (1,544 sq mi) | ||||||||
Population | ||||||||||
• | 1751 est. | 250,000 | ||||||||
Density | 62.5 /km² (161.9 /sq mi) | |||||||||
Currency |
Piedmontese scudo (to 1816) French franc (1800–14) Sardinian lira (1816–48) |
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Today part of | Provence, France |
The County of Nice or Niçard Country (French: Comté de Nice / Pays Niçois, Italian: Contea di Nizza/Paese Nizzardo, Niçard Occitan: Comtat de Niça/País Niçard) is a historical region of France, located in the south-eastern part, around the city of Nice, and roughly equivalent to the modern department of Alpes-Maritimes.
Its territory lies between the Mediterranean Sea (Côte d'Azur), Var River and the southernmost crest of the Alps.
Ligurian tribes populated the Contea di Nizza prior to its occupation by the Romans. These tribes, conquered by Augustus, had become fully Romanized (according to Theodore Mommsen) by the 4th century, when the barbarian invasions began. In those Roman centuries the area was part of the Regio IX Liguria of Italy.
The Franks conquered the region after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, and the local Romance populations became integrated within the County of Provence, with a period of independence as a maritime republic (1108–1176). It was initially a semi-autonomous part of the ancient County of Provence, then it became in 1388 a part of the Duchy of Savoy (which became the Kingdom of Sardinia, usually referred to as Piedmont-Sardinia, in 1720).