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The 'Occitano-Romance' branch of Romance languages encompasses the dialects pertaining to the Occitan and the Catalan languages situated in France (Occitania, Northern Catalonia), Spain (Catalonia, Valencian Community, Balearic Islands, La Franja, Carxe), Andorra, Monaco, parts of Italy (Occitan Valleys, Alghero, Guardia Piemontese), and historically in the County of Tripoli and the possessions of the Crown of Aragon. The existence of this group of languages is discussed both in linguistic and political basis.
According to certain linguists Occitan should be included in Gallo-Romance, and according to others both Occitan and the Catalan should be considered Gallo-Romance. However, other linguists consider Catalan as part of the Ibero-Romance languages.
The issue at debate is as political as it is linguistic, since the division on Gallo-Romance and Ibero-Romance languages stems from the current nation-states of France and Spain, and thus is based more on territorial criteria than historic and linguistic criteria. One of the main proponents of the unity of the languages of the Iberian peninsula was Spanish philologist Ramon Menendez Pidal, while from long time ago others like Wilhelm Meyer-Lubke (''Das Katalanische'', Heidelberg, 1925) have supported the kinship of Occitan and Catalan.
During the Middle Ages, for five centuries (VIII to XIII) of political and social convergence of these territories, there was no clear distinction or separation between the Occitan and the Catalan. For instance, the Provençal troubadour, Albert de Sisteron, says: "Tell me which are better, French or Catalans, and place me among the Catalans, the Gascons, Provençal, Limousins, Auvergnats and Viennois". In Marseille, a typical Provençal song is called 'Catalan song'. (M. Milà i Fontanals, ''De los Trobadores en España'', p. 487)