Bastia is a French commune located in the department of Haute-Corse.
It has been the prefecture of the department since 1976.
With
48,296 inhabitants (2020 census), Bastia is the second most populated
municipality in Corsica after Ajaccio. It is the capital of Bagnaja, a
country in the northeast of the island, extending between the course of
the Golo and Cap Corse.
Its geographical location made the city
the hub of island trade during the period of Genoese rule over the
island. Until the middle of the 20th century, it was the island's main
city before being overtaken by Ajaccio. It was the prefecture of the
single department from 1790 to 1792 then of the department of Golo from
1796 to 1811. It is the second island port city to suffer a siege during
the French Revolution. After the proclamation of the Anglo-Corsican
Kingdom, it was chosen to the detriment of Corte as the capital of the
kingdom. Bastia is the first island town to be occupied by the Royal
Italian Army after the success of Operation Torch which sees the landing
of the Allies in North Africa. She is also the last to be liberated, on
October 4, 1943, which marks the end of the liberation of Corsica.
Bastia is one of the most beautiful towns in Corsica. But it
undoubtedly requires more attention and more imagination than other
places on the island which are self-sufficient. Italian city by its
origins, it has kept its heart and the Citadel.
Between the
old quarter of Terra Vecchia, whose origins date back to 1380, and
that of Terra Nova, begun a century later, sits the Genoese
domination. However, Bastia sometimes has Neapolitan accents with
its cracked houses, its wrought iron balconies and its facades where
multicolored garlands of linen float gleefully.
You can visit
Bastia as a tourist: the Place Saint-Nicolas on which you will
stroll before sitting on the terrace of a café, the Romeu garden
through which you access the Citadel, the ethnographic museum and
the Museum of the Sea, the churches and chapels with generous
decorations. Bastia has several religious curiosities, including an
Assumption in chiseled silver by a 17th century Sienese artist, and
the Black Christ from the Sainte-Croix church, found floating on the
water between four marvelous lights. It is celebrated on May 3,
feast of the Intervention of the Holy Cross, and the statue is
carried at the head of a procession through the streets of the city.
But the beauty of Bastia, a mysterious city for those who do not
reside there, is not in the marble and gold of its churches. She is
in these houses with closed shutters but half-open jealousies. You
have to take the trouble to walk and get lost in the alleys to
discover it.
Music floats between the houses, soft as a
summer evening when the music is slow to die out on the horizon. So
Bastia shakes up its modernism and regains its former grandeur, when
patrician families lived in the honorable wealth that cosmopolitan
commerce afforded them. The music spreads in the narrow streets and
invades the city. Bastia: city of culture, crossroads of nations,
with a destiny linked to that of an Italy streaming with riches.
From the Place Saint-Nicolas which looks at the sea, go up
alleys with Mediterranean colors and scents. Above the Cardu
mountain, whose summit can be seen, there is a pass where the
Libecciu sinks. This wind blows over the city like a bird of prey
and seizes everything it finds. The breath dies very high in the sky
and Bastia regains her appearance of calm.
Bastia is at the foot of the Pigno massif. Cap Corse begins in the north of the city. From the new port (Nouveau Port) through the road tunnel to the south you get to the southern industrial areas.
The commune is located in Alpine Corsica (eastern) which is formed by
“a succession of autochthonous units (terrain in place),
para-autochthonous (weakly displaced land) and especially allochthonous
(strongly displaced land). The first two roughly coincide with the
central depression. The allochtone, belonging essentially to the zone of
lustrous schists and ophiolites, corresponds to the eastern reliefs (Cap
Corse and Castagniccia)”.
Its soil rests on a partly granitic
base (Hercynian leucocratic granites, clear rocks), which has been
covered with oceanic layers of:
sedimentary rocks (Miocene to
Quaternary) of the eastern coast, which go from the mouth of the Lupinu
stream in the north to the mouth of the Travu in the south,
lustrous
shales that occupy the entire eastern side of Cap Corse,
ophiolites
emplaced in eastern Corsica during the Eocene.
Note the presence of
copper ore at Cardu, whose deposit had been the subject of a concession.
Bastia is characterized by its position between the sea and the
mountains. The town is located on the eastern flank of the "Serra di
Pignu", a mountain which rises to 957 m above sea level. This sloping
mountain forms with other Bastia hills the typical relief of Cap Corse.
This pronounced relief largely explains the development of the city on a
coastal strip of about 1.5 km in width, i.e. a very limited part of the
19.38 km2 of the municipality.
Bastia is located on the southern
slope of the ridge forming the Cap Corse, the chain of Serra-di-Pignu.
Several streams have deeply dug a series of small valleys at the bottom
of which flow small streams, so that they bear the names of: Lupinu
Valley, Fangu Valley, Toga Valley, Griscione Valley, Miomu Valley, etc.
.
The hydrographic network is sparse. It has three streams (or fiume)
running from west to east:
to the north, the Fiuminale stream
which has its source in the northwest of the town, some 400 m northeast
of Monte Muzzone (920 m). 4.3 km long, it delimits the territories of
the municipalities of Bastia and Ville-di-Pietrabugno from its source to
the Annonciade roundabout. When crossing the city, its course is partly
covered, from the Chemin de l'Annonciade to the port of Commerce where
it flows into the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is fed by the Cardo stream
The
Toga stream, which originates in the town of Ville-di-Pietrabugno, ends
its course in the eponymous marina.
in the center, the Lupino stream.
Also 4.3 km long, it has its source in the town of Bastia, near the Cima
Orcaio (769 m). Its course is covered at its mouth, crossroads of the
Abattoirs.
to the south, the Corbaia stream, 5.3 km7 long. It rises
under the old quarry near the Col de Teghime.
Bastia has a Mediterranean climate, however its exposure to the east
by mountain slope gives it a shortened exposure to the sun. There is
therefore no sunset in Bastia but very beautiful sunrises. The average
annual temperature is 15.5°C and there are about five frost days per
year. The winds are relatively frequent and violent, the rainfall
abundant (799.3 mm), but there is however an average of 240 days of
sunshine per year.
The town is affected by two levels of
vegetation which are the expression of a climate but also of a flora:
Thermo-Mediterranean level (from 1 to 100 m above sea level on the
sides). This floor is characterized by a dry summer season of two to
three months which favors wild olive, white asparagus, lentisk, tree
spurge, clematis, etc.
Meso-Mediterranean level (from 100 to 1,000 m
altitude on the sides, from 0 to 700 m on the sides). This level, with
cooler temperatures, is characterized mainly by holm oak, maquis with
heather and arbutus, but also by cork oak and maritime pine (adret),
pubescent oak (ubac), chestnut or even lavender, broom, cistus and
mastic tree8. On the heights, between bare rocks, the vegetation is
short, swept by the frequent and violent winds from the west and
south-west (libeccio) which strengthen as they cross the crest line of
the Serra di Pigno and descend the along the valleys to the sea, forming
remarkable lenticular clouds off Bastia.
In the 14th century the Republic of Genoa built a fortification. The name Bastia derives from the Italian name bastiglia. A mention of Bastia can be found in the 16th century in the description Dialogo nominato Corsica by Monseigneur Agostino Giustinianis, Bishop of Nebbio. Between April 4 and May 19, 1794, Bastia was besieged. The British and the French fought for control of Corsica. The battle involved Lacombe St Michel, Sir David Dundas, Abraham D'Aubant, Lord Hood and Horatio Nelson. The British-Corsican victory led to the establishment of the short-lived Anglo-Corsican Kingdom (1794–1796). During these two years, Bastia was also the capital (next to Corte) for a short time.
The economic heart of the city is the seaport, where the many car
ferries dock. There are ferry connections to France (Nice, Toulon,
Marseille) and Italy (Genoa, Livorno and Savona). The port is also used
for shipping goods.
The city's main train station is the starting
point of the Bastia-Ajaccio railway, from which the Ponte-Leccia-Calvi
railway branches off in Ponte-Leccia. There are direct train connections
to both Ajaccio and Calvi. There is also a suburban service to Casamozza
train station (kilometer 21).
Bastia Airport is almost 20
kilometers to the south.
Bastia is home to football club SC Bastia, which competes at Stade Armand Cesari. His greatest achievements were third place in the 1976/77 French championship, 1981 cup winner, 1997 Intertotocup winner and 1978 UEFA Cup finalist.