The French city that is essentially Catalan — where the Palace of the Kings of Majorca crowns a hilltop above a city whose language, architecture, cuisine, and festivals belong to Catalonia rather than France, and where Salvador Dalí declared the train station 'the centre of the universe'
Perpignan (120,000; metro 325,000) in Pyrénées-Orientales is the capital of French Catalonia (Roussillon) — culturally, architecturally, and linguistically closer to Barcelona than to Paris. The city was the mainland capital of the Kingdom of Majorca (1276–1344) whose Palace of the Kings of Majorca on the hilltop above the city is one of the finest examples of Aragonese Gothic architecture. Perpignan's cathedral, its covered market (Les Halles Vauban), its sardana dances, and its cuisine (all'i oli, botifarra, crema catalana) are Catalan rather than French. Salvador Dalí famously declared Per…
Perpignan was the capital of the County of Roussillon from the 10th century and became the mainland seat of the Kingdom of Majorca (a subordinate Aragonese kingdom) from 1276 — the Palace of the Kings of Majorca (begun 1276) was the royal residence for 68 years. The city passed to the Crown of Aragon (1344), was contested between France and Spain throughout the 15th century, was ceded to France by the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) along with the entire Roussillon region — an annexation that Catalans still regard as a historical injustice. Catalan was the dominant language until the French Rev…