The Principality of Orange (in French, la Principauté d'Orange) was (from 1163 to 1713) a feudal state in Provence, in the south of modern-day France, on the left bank of the River Rhone north of the city of Avignon.
It was constituted in 1163, when Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I elevated the Burgundian County of Orange (consisting of the city of Orange and the land surrounding it) to a sovereign principality within the Empire. The principality became part of the scattered holdings of the house of Orange-Nassau from the time that William I "the Silent" inherited the title of Prince of Orange from his cousin in 1544, until it was finally ceded to France in 1713 under the Treaty of Utrecht. Although permanently lost to the Nassaus then, this fief gave its name to the extant Royal House of the Netherlands by virtue of the imperial immediacy it used to enjoy. The area of the principality was approximately 12 miles long by 9 miles wide, or 108 sq. miles.
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—Edward Hirsch (b. 1950)