Padania

Padania ( pə-DAY-nee-ə, UK also -⁠DAH-, Italian: [paˈdaːnja]) is an alternative name and proposed independent state encompassing Northern Italy, derived from the name of the Po River (Latin Padus), whose basin includes much of the region, centered on the Po Valley (Pianura Padana), the major plain of Northern Italy. Coined in 1903 as a geographical term roughly corresponding to the historically Celtic land of Cisalpine Gaul, the term was popularized beginning in the early 1990s, when Lega Nord, a federalist and, at times, separatist political party in Italy, proposed it as a possible name for an independent state. Since then it has been strongly associated with "Padanian nationalism" and North Italian separatism. Padania as defined in Lega Nord's 1996 Declaration of Independence and Sovereignty of Padania goes beyond Northern Italy and includes much of Central Italy, for a greater Padania that includes more than half of the Italian Republic (161,000 of 301,000 km2 in area, 34 million out of 60 million in population). Some Padanians consider themselves to have Celtic ancestry and/or heritage.