2. Provence is a province of the Roman Empire, abbreviated as PACA in English, and now it is a region in southeast France, bordering on the Mediterranean Sea and Italy. The Rhone River, which flows southward from the Alps through Lyon, divides into two tributaries near Provence and then flows into the Mediterranean Sea.
Provence is the "City of Knights" in Europe, and it is also the birthplace of knight lyric poetry, an important literary genre in the Middle Ages.
The geographical scope of Provence has changed greatly in history. In ancient Rome, Provence reached the Alps in the north and the Pyrenees in the south, including the whole southern France. Provence became one of the five administrative provinces during the French Revolution at the end of 18. In the1960s, France was subdivided into 22 regions, and Provence belonged to Provence-Alpes-C? te d 'Azur region.