AC Arles-Avignon

Athlétic Club Arles-Avignon (French pronunciation: ​[aʁl-aviɲɔ̃]; commonly referred to as Arles-Avignon or simply Arles) is a French association football club originally based in Arles. The club was founded in 1912 as a result of a merger and was formerly known as Athlétic Club Arles, but in 2010, moved to the nearby commune of Avignon and adopted its current name. Arles-Avignon currently plays in Championnat de France Amateur, the fourth division in French football; it previously gained four promotions in five seasons to reach Ligue 1 in 2010.

Arles-Avignon plays its home matches at the Parc des Sports in nearby Avignon. The team is managed by former football player Franck Dumas and captained by defender Sébastien Cantini, who joined the club in 2012, after a five-year stint in Italy. In France, it has been commonplace to described Arles-Avignon as an overachieving club primarily due to succeeding despite limited resources. Arles-Avignon's highest honour to date was winning its group in the Championnat de France amateur, the fourth level of French football, in 2007. Regionally, the club has won the Division Honneur Sud-Est Ouest three times and its reserve team are the current defending champions of the Méditerranée Division Honneur Régionale.

Arles

Arles (French pronunciation: ​[aʁl]; Occitan: Arle [ˈaʀle] in both classical and Mistralian norms; Arelate in ancient Latin) is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence.

A large part of the Camargue is located on the territory of the commune, making it the largest commune in Metropolitan France in terms of territory (though Maripasoula, French Guiana, is much larger). The city has a long history, and was of considerable importance in the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis. The Roman and Romanesque Monuments of Arles were listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1981. The Dutch post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh lived in Arles from 1888 to 1889 and produced over 300 paintings and drawings during his time there. An international photography festival has been held in the city since 1970.

Geography

The river Rhône forks into two branches just upstream of Arles, forming the Camargue delta. Because the Camargue is for a large part administratively part of Arles, the commune as a whole is the largest commune in Metropolitan France in terms of territory, although its population is only slightly more than 50,000. Its area is 758.93 km² (293.02 sq mi), which is more than seven times the area of Paris.