The Basques are an ethnic group that are native to southwestern France's Gascony region and northern Spain's Basque Country, with the Basque culture and language dating to before the Roman Empire set foot in Spain. The Basques share ancestry with the Vascones and Aquitani of Roman times, and they have been an island of non-Iberian culture and language for hundreds of years. Their cultural differences with the Spanish and the dictator Francisco Franco's attempts at converting Basques to the Spanish culture in the mid-20th century led to terrorism by the Basque ETA (National Liberation Army), a socialist revolutionary movement that sought to obtain Basque independence through violence; this insurgency ended in 2011. Many Basques have moved to other countries, and they have a worldwide population of 13,000,000 people, with 2,410,000 living in Spain, 239,000 in France, 57,793 in the United States, and 10,000,000 elsewhere.
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