The Gers (French: le Gers, Gascon: Gers, pronounced: [ʒɛʁs] or [ʒɛʁ]) is a department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in the southwest of France named after the Gers River.

Inhabitants are called les Gersois or Gersoises.

In the Middle Ages, the Lordship of L'Isle-Jourdain was nearby.

The Gers is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Guyenne and Gascony.

In 1808 it lost Lavit on its the north-eastern side to the newly created department of Tarn-et-Garonne.

The culture is largely agricultural, with great emphasis on the local gastronomical specialties such as:

Also, some prominent cultivated crops are corn, colza, sunflowers and grain.

The Gascon language is a dialect of Occitan, but it is not widely spoken.The department is characterised by sleepy bastide villages and rolling hills with the Pyrenees visible to the south.

Alexandre Dumas, père created the famous Gersois d'Artagnan, the fourth musketeer of The Three Musketeers. A museum to d'Artagnan is found in the Gersois village of Lupiac.

Gustaaf Stephanus Modestus "Guus" Meeuwis (born Mariahout, 23 March 1972) is a Dutch singer and songwriter. As part of the band Vagant, he scored several hits in the Netherlands and Flanders during the '90s and first decade of the 2000s.

Guus Meeuwis was born at a monastery in Mariahout, a small village in the municipality of Laarbeek where his parents were living temporarily. He attended Stella Maris College, and went on to study jurisprudence in Tilburg. It quickly became apparent that Meeuwis was musically talented while at school. Following a romantic weekend in Bruges with his girlfriend Valérie he wrote the song Het is een Nacht ("It is a Night"), with which, in 1994, he won a prize at the AHC-Studentensongfestival in Leiden. He and his backing band were awarded a record contract, under the name "Guus Meeuwis & Vagant", after a café they frequented. Marc Meeuwis, Jan Willem Rozenboom, Hugo van Bilsen, Robin van Beek en Dirk Oerlemans. At the end of 2001 the group decided to split and Meeuwis continued on as a solo artist.

Marco Borsato (born December 21, 1966) is a Dutch singer. He started performing in Italian before switching to Dutch in 1994. He is married to Leontine Ruiters and has three children.

Marco was born in the Wilhelmina Hospital in Alkmaar as the son of Roberto Borsato and Mary de Graaf. He has a brother, Armando, and a sister, Sylvana. The family moved to Italy, where the father started up a restaurant in Garda. Marco spent a significant amount of time in Italy and speaks fluent Italian. In fact, Marco admitted that his Italian is much better than his Dutch.

When Marco was 12 years old he decided he wanted to be a sushi chef. Marco, though brought up with Italian cuisine, had a great love for raw fish bound in seaweed. When he was older he went to school during the week and he worked in a restaurant during the weekends. During his conscription he was bound to the cavalery, where he was conscripted as a NCO. Success stayed out after Marco Borsato won the Dutch Soundmixshow on April 6, 1990 with his rendition of Billy Vera's song "At This Moment." During that time he was indeed working as a chef.