Picardy

Picardy (; Picard and , , ) is a historical and cultural territory and a former administrative region located in northern France. The first mentions of this province date back to the Middle Ages: it gained its first official recognition in the 13th century through the nation of Picardy at the University of Paris and entered French administration in the 14th century. Unlike regions such as Normandy, Brittany, or Champagne, Picardy was never established as a duchy, county, or principality, and its boundaries fluctuated over the centuries due to the political instability in the area it covered. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region of Hauts-de-France.

The first geographic description of Picardy appeared in the late central Middle Ages, including the bishoprics of Amiens, Beauvais, Arras, Tournai, and Thérouanne. In the late Middle Ages, it also encompassed Saint-Quentin, Douai, Abbeville, Béthune, Clermont, and other towns like Noyon, Valenciennes, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Hesdin, and Laon. At that time, Picardy was divided into Upper and Lower Picardy: Upper Picardy was closer to Île-de-France, while Lower Picardy, which Barthélemy the Englishman referred to as Hainaut, was closer to Flanders and Brabant.

During the ''ancien régime'', Picardy was generally defined by thirteen traditional regions, still divided into Upper and Lower Picardy: the former grouping inland areas and the latter, coastal areas. It was divided between the governments of Picardy and Île-de-France. The government of Picardy covered the northern half of Upper Picardy, while the government of Île-de-France held the southern half, including towns such as Beauvais, Noyon, and Laon. This description of Picardy, seen in 19th and 20th-century records from the Society of Antiquaries of Picardy and the Historical Society of Upper Picardy, extended from Senlis to Calais, from Soissons and Laon to Abbeville and Boulogne-sur-Mer.

Historians and geographers like Robert Fossier, Albert Demangeon, and Philippe Pinchemel replaced the idea of the ''ancien régime'' Picardy with the notion of an ethnic Picardy, identified particularly by the Picard language. This ethnic Picardy would include places like Senlis and Soissons, which popular tradition historically associated with Picardy due to their dialect, with the northern boundary marked by the linguistic border with Flemish, thus extending to Calais and Tournai. In the 20th century, geographer Albert Demangeon demonstrated the existence of a geographic Picardy through what he called the "Picard plain," a vast chalk plain stretching from Beauvais to Arras, from Cambrai and Laon to Abbeville and the Boulogne region.

From 1972 to 2015, a region of the same name was created, bringing together the three departments of Somme, Oise, and Aisne, thus encompassing most of Picardy as defined in the Ancien Régime.

Today, Picardy, in its various definitions, is largely contained within the Hauts-de-France region and spread across its five departments. Part of the linguistic Picardy is in the Wallonia region of Belgium, in the Hainaut Province, and a small portion of the historic Beauvaisis is in the northern part of the Val-d'Oise department, around Beaumont-sur-Oise and L'Isle-Adam. Provided by Wikipedia