Brittany
Bretagne / Breizh
Flag
Coat of arms
Motto: Kentoc'h mervel eget bezañ saotret
"Rather death than dishonour"
Anthem: "Bro Gozh ma Zadoù"
Location of historical Brittany and the administrative region of Brittany in France and the European Union.
Country France
Largest settlements List[show]
Nantes
Rennes
Brest
Lorient
Quimper
Vannes
Redon
Saint-Brieuc
Saint-Nazaire
Area
- Total 34,023 km2 (13,136 sq mi)
Population (January 2007 estimate)
- Total 4,365,500
Time zone CET (UTC+1)
- Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2)
Brittany (French: Bretagne [b??ta?] ( listen); Breton: Breizh, pronounced [br?js]; Gallo: Bertaèyn) is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously as a kingdom and then as a duchy, Brittany was a fief of the Kingdom of France. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain). It is one of the six Celtic nations.
Brittany occupies a large peninsula in the north west of France, lying between the English Channel to the north and the Bay of Biscay to the south. Its land area is 34,023 km² (13,136 sq mi). The historical province of Brittany is divided into five departments: Finistère in the west, Côtes-d'Armor in the north, Ille-et-Vilaine in the north east, the Loire-Atlantique in the south east and Morbihan in the south on the Bay of Biscay.
During World War II, the government of Vichy France detached the Loire-Atlantique département (around the city of Nantes) from Brittany, and placed it within a region based on the city of Angers. Today, 80% of historic Brittany has become the administrative Region of Brittany, while the remaining area of the old Brittany, the Loire-Atlantique département around Nantes (formerly one of the historic capitals of Brittany), forms part of the Pays de la Loire region.
In January 2007 the population of historic Brittany was estimated to be 4,365,500. Of these, 71% lived in the région of Brittany, while 29% lived in the région of Pays-de-la-Loire. At the 1999 census, the largest metropolitan areas were Nantes (711,120 inhabitants), Rennes (521,188 inhabitants), and Brest (303,484 inhabitants).
History
Main article: History of Brittany
Anne of Brittany
Historical regions of Brittany in the 14th centuryThe peninsula that became "Brittany" was a centre of ancient megalithic constructions in the Neolithic era. It has been called the "core area" of megalithic culture. It later became the territory of several Celtic tribes, of which the most powerful was the Veneti. After Caesar's conquest of Gaul, the area became known to the Romans as Armorica, from the Celtic term for "coastal area". Its transformation into "Brittany" occurred in the late Roman period, with the establishment of Brythonic settlement in the area. The history behind such an establishment is unclear, but medieval Breton and Welsh sources connect it to a figure known as Conan Meriadoc. Welsh literary sources assert that Conan came to Armorica with the Roman usurper Magnus Maximus, who took his British troops to Gaul to enforce his claims and settled them in Armorica. Regardless of the truth of this story, Brythonic settlement probably increased during the Saxon invasion of Britain in the 5th century. Scholars such as Léon Fleuriot have suggested a two-wave model of migration from Britain which saw the emergence of an independent Breton people and established the dominance of the Brythonic (British Celtic) Breton language in Armorica. Over time the Armorican British colony expanded, forming a group of petty kingdoms which were later unified in the 840s under Nominoe in resistance to Frankish control.
In the mid-9th century Nominoe and his successors won a series of victories over the Franks which secured an independent Duchy of Brittany. In the High Middle Ages the Duchy was sometimes allied to England and sometimes to France. The pro-English faction was victorious in 1364 in the Breton War of Succession, but the independent Breton army was eventually defeated by the French in 1488, leading to dynastic union with France following the marriage of Duchess Anne of Brittany to two kings of France in succession. In 1532 the Duchy was incorporated into France.
In the 18th century the Pontcallec Conspiracy arose from continuing Breton claims to legal distinction from France, but the Duchy was legally abolished during the French Revolution. The area became a centre of royalist and Catholic resistance to the Revolution during the Chouannerie.
