in the territories it purports to unite. As a political term, it refers to a number of political projects as advocated by supporters of Catalan independence. These, based on the linguistic fact, argue for the existence of a common national identity that would surpass the limits of each territory covered by this concept and would apply also to the remaining ones. These movements advocate for "political collaboration" amongst these territories. This often stands for their union and political independence. As a consequence of the opposition these political projects have received –notably in some of the territories described by this concept – some cultural institutions avoid the usage of Països Catalans in some contexts, as a means to prevent any political interpretation; in these cases, equivalent expressions (such as Catalan-speaking countries) or others (such as the linguistic domain of Catalan language) are used instead. Component territories Catalan and its variants are spoken in: the Spanish Autonomous Communities of Catalonia – even though in the comarca of Val d'Aran, Occitan is considered the language proper to that territory; Aragon, in a Catalan-speaking area known as "La Franja de Ponent" ("Western Strip"); the Balearic Islands and as Valencian, in the Valencian Community, with the exception of some western and southern territories where Spanish is the only language spoken; Carche, small Valencian-speaking area in the Spanish autonomous community of Murcia where some of its 600 inhabitants still speak Valencian due to immigration during the 19th century; Andorra, a European sovereign state where Catalan is the national and only official language. most of the French department of the Pyrénées-Orientales, also called Le Pays Catalan (The Catalan Country) in French or Catalunya (del) Nord (Northern Catalonia) in Catalan; the Italian city of Alghero, in the island of Sardinia, where a variant of Catalan is spoken. Catalan is the official language of Andorra, co-official with Spanish and Occitan in Catalonia, co-official with Spanish in the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community—with the denomination of Valencian in the latter—and co-official with Italian in the city of Alghero. It is also part of the recognized minority languages of Italy along with Sardinian, also spoken in Alghero. It is not official in Aragon, Murcia or the Pyrénées-Orientales, even though on 10 December 2007 the General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales officially recognized Catalan, along with French, as a language of the department. In 2009, the Catalan language was declared llengua pròpia