Northern France (langue d'oïl)

The langue d'oïl north — the Paris-centred core that became France. From a tiny Capetian royal domain after 987 it expanded outward, absorbing Normandy, Burgundy and the south by war, marriage and inheritance, then imposing its language, bureaucracy and the Jacobin model — the département, the lycée, the Académie française — on the provinces it had swallowed. Home to the capital, the grandes écoles and the bulk of the nation's wealth, it forged the cathedral Gothic, court culture and haute cuisine that became a template of European refinement. The enduring gulf between this assimilating centre and the regions it absorbed is the deep structure of France itself.

• Existed: 1000 CE – present
• Type: Entity