Narbonne

Narbonne ( , , ; ; ; Late Latin:) is a commune and subprefecture in Southern France, located in the Occitanie region. It is located about from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and was historically a prosperous port city. Narbonne lies from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is an arrondissement. From the 14th century onwards, it declined following a change in the course of the river Aude. While it is the largest commune in Aude, the capital of the Aude department is the smaller commune of Carcassonne.

==Etymology== The etymology of the town's original name, , is lost in antiquity, and it may have referred to a hillfort from the Iron Age close to the location of the current settlement or its occupants. The earliest known record of the area comes from the Ancient Greek historian and geographer Hecataeus of Miletus (5th century BCE), who identified it as a Celtic harbor and marketplace at that time, and called its inhabitants Ναρβαῖοι, although the French academics and philologists Edme Cougny and Henri Lebègue report that several other names were used in ancient times to refer to the town, its territory, and Celtic inhabitants in ancient Greek inscriptions.