Another attraction in town is: Cathedral St. Jean Baptist – which began in 1324 and was finished in 1509, Castillet from the 1300s, a natural history museum and an aviation museum.

Nearest international airport is Aéroport Perpignan – Rivesaltes, which is 6 km northwest of downtown.

In recent years the city has been promoted with the slogan Perpignan Catalane / Catalan Perpignan. In 2008 he was honored as Capital of Catalan Culture.

It is an important agricultural market (fruits, vegetables, olive oil, wine and grains). Textile mills, railroad equipment and paper. Rail and road junction. Since January 2013, Perpignan connects the rest of France and Spain by high speed line Madrid-Barcelona-Paris.
Capital County of Roussillon, was not integrated into the Crown of Aragon until 1172, when the will of the Earl of Ampurias, Gerardo II of Roussillon, the county became part of the Crown. In 1349, King Peter IV of Aragon establishes the General Study of Perpignan, endorsed as a university by Pope Clement VII in 1379.

During the rest of the Middle Ages became an important commercial center, including the city and the surrounding territory passed to French hands alternately Aragonese hands, Roussillon as part of the Principality of Catalonia.
On the death of Ferdinand, his grandson Charles was crowned King of Aragon in Zaragoza in 1518, before the courts, uniting for the first time under one monarch crowns of Castile and Aragon. In this context becomes part of the Spanish Crown under the Habsburg dynasty. Thus, Roussillon becomes borderland between the Monarchy and France. In 1542, Perpignan was defended by the Duke of Alba against the troops of Henry, Dauphin of France (the future Henry II). The French made ​​another attempt to annex the territories north of the Pyrenees in 1595 Because of this insecurity, Charles I and Philip II reinforced the fortifications of Perpignan and turned the old palace of the kings of Mallorca in a citadel.

During the rebellion of 1640 Catalonia was occupied by French troops supported by the Catalan rebels in September 1642 After the surrender of Barcelona before King Philip IV in 1654, the Government of Catalonia moved there. The signing of the Peace of the Pyrenees (1659) between the kings of France and Spain certifies the transfer of Perpignan, along with the rest of Catalan territories that would form the province of Roussillon to the French crown. In 1660 the Government is suppressed by the French monarchy.

With the creation of the department of Pyrenees-Orientales, shortly after the French Revolution (March 4, 1790), Perpignan became the capital of the department. However, despite its new status as a provincial capital, Perpignan enters a state of stagnation during the nineteenth century. In 1794, for example, your university was suppressed (a new university is not to found in the city until 1979). Earlier in the century, the city is more or less the fourteenth century. The walls are demolished in the early twentieth century, allowing the expansion of the city in the plain of Roussillon.

After the defeat of the Second Spanish Republic after the Civil War Perpignan, along with other cities in the south of France, welcomed many Spanish Republican exiles.

Poster Bilingual French and Catalan in the streets of Perpignan.

The only official language used by the administration until 2010 was French, although about 39% of the population declared they can speak Catalan. [8] On June 11, 2010 the city muncipal unanimously approved, the municipal Charter for Catalan language, establishing Catalan as an official language of Perpignan, along with French.

Tweet