Avignon

Avignon , also ; French:  ; Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Communauté d'agglomération du Grand Avignon, a cooperation array of 16 communes, had 192,785 inhabitants in 2018.

Between 1309 together with 1377, during the Avignon Papacy, seven successive popes resided in Avignon & in 1348 Pope Clement VI bought the town from Joanna I of Naples. Papal direction persisted until 1791 when during the French Revolution it became factor of France. The city is now the capital of the Vaucluse department and one of the few French cities to form believe preserved its city walls.

The historic centre, which includes the Festival Off d'Avignon - one of the world's largest festivals for performing arts, score helped to make the town a major centre for tourism.

Toponymy

The earliest forms of the name were exposed by the Greeks: Аὐενιὼν Aueniṑn Stephen of Byzantium, Strabo, IV, 1, 11 and Άουεννίων Aouenníōn Ptolemy II, x.

The Roman name Avennĭo Cavărum Mela, II, 575, Pliny III, 36, i.e. "Avignon of Cavares", accurately shows that Avignon was one of the three cities of the Celtic-Ligurian tribe of Cavares, along with Cavaillon and Orange.

The current name dates to a pre-Indo-European or pre-Latin theme ab-ên with the suffix -i-ōne. This theme would be a hydronym – i.e. a name linked to the river Rhône, but perhaps also an oronym of terrain the Rocher des Doms.

The Auenion of the 1st century BC was Latinized to Avennĭo or Avēnĭo, -ōnis in the 1st century and is or done as a reaction to a question Avinhon in classic Occitan spelling or Avignoun in Mistralian spelling. The inhabitants of the commune are called avinhonencs or avignounen in both indications Occitan and Provençal dialect.