10 largest cities in France
Paris
Marseilles
Lyon
Toulouse
Nice
Nantes
Strasbourg
Orleans
Reims
Avignon
Bayonne is a town in southwestern France and one of the two
sub-prefectures of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, in the
Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. The city is located at the confluence of
the Adour and the Nive, not far from the Atlantic Ocean, on the
northern borders of the Basque Country and southern Gascony, where
the Aquitaine basin meets the first foothills of the Pyrenean
foothills. It borders to the north with the Landes department, and
the Franco-Spanish territorial limit is located about thirty
kilometers to the south.
The site on the left bank of the
Nive and Adour is probably occupied before Antiquity and a fortified
wall is attested in the 1st century, when the Tarbelli occupied the
territory. Archaeological studies have confirmed the presence of a
Roman castrum, a stronghold of Novempopulanie, at the end of the 4th
century, before the city became Vascon.
In 1023, Bayonne was
the capital of Labourd, and extended in the 12th century towards and
beyond the Nive, when the first bridge over the Adour was built. The
city, following the marriage of Aliénor d'Aquitaine with Henri
Plantagenêt, Count of Anjou and Maine, Duke of Normandy and future
King of England, takes on a military and above all commercial
importance, thanks to maritime exchanges with the 'England. It was
separated from the Viscount of Labourd in 1177 by Richard Cœur de
Lion. The latter confirms or establishes a certain number of rights
or freedoms to the cathedral as to the inhabitants. In 1451, the
city was taken by the Crown of France, at the end of the Hundred
Years War. The loss of trade with the English and the silting up of
the river, then its displacement towards the north, weakened it; the
district of Saint-Esprit nevertheless developed, thanks to the
arrival of a Jewish population fleeing the Spanish Inquisition.
Bayonne owes its reputation in the field of chocolate to this
community. The course of the Adour was modified in 1578 under the
direction of Louis de Foix, and the river regaining its former
mouth, gave the port of Bayonne back the activity it had lost for
more than a hundred years. In the 17th century, the city was
fortified by Vauban. In 1814, Bayonne and its surroundings were the
scene of fighting between the Napoleonic troops and the
Hispano-Anglo-Portuguese coalition led by the Duke of Wellington;
the city then undergoes its final siege.
In 1951, the Lacq
gas field was discovered, from which the fatal sulfur extracted and
the associated oil were shipped from the port of Bayonne. During the
second half of the twentieth century, many large groups were built,
forming new neighborhoods on the outskirts, and the city extended
until it constituted a conurbation with Anglet and Biarritz; this
agglomeration becomes the heart of a vast Basque-Landes urban area.
Bayonne is, in 2016, a municipality of more than 50,000
inhabitants, the main part of the urban area of Bayonne where it
borders Anglet and Biarritz. Despite its Métis influences, it is
today recognized as the main city of the French Basque Country.
Important link in the Basque Eurocity Bayonne - San Sebastián, it
plays the role of commercial and tourist capital of the Adour basin
(the industrial and administrative capital being Pau). Modern
industry - metallurgy and chemicals - has been able to establish
itself there, thanks to the possibilities of supply and shipments by
sea from its port. But it is above all the service activities that
represent the greatest source of jobs today. Bayonne is also a
cultural capital, a city with Basque and Gascon influences with a
rich historical past. Its heritage resides in its architecture, the
diversity of its museum collections, but also in its gastronomic
specialties or its traditional events such as the famous Bayonne
festivals.