Banyuls-sur-Mer is a commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France. It was first settled by Greeks starting in 400 BCE.

Pyrénées-Orientales, also known as Northern Catalonia, are a department of the region of Occitania, Southern France, adjacent to the northern Spanish frontier and the Mediterranean Sea. It borders the departments of Ariège to the northwest and Aude to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the east and the Spanish province of Girona in Catalonia to the south and the country of Andorra to the west. It also surrounds the tiny Spanish exclave of Llívia, and thus has two distinct borders with Spain. In 2019, it had a population of 479,979. Some parts of the Pyrénées-Orientales are part of the Iberian Peninsula. It is named after the Pyrenees mountain range.