Nantes (, , ;
Gallo
Gallo may refer to:
*Related to Gaul:
** Gallo-Roman culture
**Gallo language, a regional language of France
**Gallo-Romance, a branch of Romance languages
**Gallo-Italic or Gallo-Italian language, a branch spoken in Northern Italy of the Romance ...
: or ; ) is a city in
Loire-Atlantique
Loire-Atlantique (; br, Liger-Atlantel; before 1957: ''Loire-Inférieure'', br, Liger-Izelañ, link=no) is a department in Pays de la Loire on the west coast of France, named after the river Loire and the Atlantic Ocean. It had a population o ...
on the
Loire
The Loire (, also ; ; oc, Léger, ; la, Liger) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône ...
, from the
Atlantic coast. The city is the
sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabitants (2018). With
Saint-Nazaire
Saint-Nazaire (; ; Gallo: ''Saint-Nazère/Saint-Nazaer'') is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany.
The town has a major harbour on the right bank of the Loire estuary, near the Atlantic Ocean ...
, a seaport on the Loire estuary, Nantes forms one of the main north-western French metropolitan agglomerations.
It is the administrative seat of the
Loire-Atlantique
Loire-Atlantique (; br, Liger-Atlantel; before 1957: ''Loire-Inférieure'', br, Liger-Izelañ, link=no) is a department in Pays de la Loire on the west coast of France, named after the river Loire and the Atlantic Ocean. It had a population o ...
department
Department may refer to:
* Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility
Government and military
*Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...
and the
Pays de la Loire
Pays de la Loire (; ; br, Broioù al Liger) is one of the 18 regions of France, in the west of the mainland. It was created in the 1950s to serve as a zone of influence for its capital, Nantes, one of a handful of "balancing metropolises" ().
...
region
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...
, one of 18 regions of France. Nantes belongs historically and culturally to
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...
, a former
duchy
A duchy, also called a dukedom, is a Middle Ages, medieval country, territory, fiefdom, fief, or domain ruled by a duke or duchess, a ruler hierarchically second to the king or Queen regnant, queen in Western European tradition.
There once exis ...
and
province
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...
, and its omission from the modern administrative region of Brittany is controversial.
Nantes was identified during
classical antiquity
Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...
as a port on the Loire. It was the seat of a bishopric at the end of the
Roman era
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...
before it was conquered by the
Bretons
The Bretons (; br, Bretoned or ''Vretoned,'' ) are a Celts, Celtic ethnic group native to Brittany. They trace much of their heritage to groups of Common Brittonic, Brittonic speakers who emigrated from Dumnonia, southwestern Great Britain, par ...
in 851. Although Nantes was the primary residence of the 15th-century
dukes of Brittany
This is a list of rulers of the Duchy of Brittany. In different epochs the sovereigns of Brittany were kings, princes, and dukes. The Breton ruler was sometimes elected, sometimes attained the position by conquest or intrigue, or by hereditary r ...
,
Rennes
Rennes (; br, Roazhon ; Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France at the confluence of the Ille and the Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department ...
became the provincial capital after the 1532
union of Brittany and France. During the 17th century, after the establishment of the
French colonial empire
The French colonial empire () comprised the overseas colonies, protectorates and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the "First French Colonial Empire", that exist ...
, Nantes gradually became the largest port in France and
was responsible for nearly half of the 18th-century French
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
. The
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
resulted in an economic decline, but Nantes developed robust industries after 1850 (chiefly in shipbuilding and food processing).
Deindustrialisation
Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially of heavy industry or manufacturing industry.
There are different interpre ...
in the second half of the 20th century spurred the city to adopt a
service economy.
In 2020, the
Globalization and World Cities Research Network
The Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) is a think tank that studies the relationships between world cities in the context of globalization. It is based in the geography department of Loughborough University in Leicestershi ...
ranked Nantes as a
Gamma world city. It is the third-highest-ranking city in France, after
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
and
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
. The Gamma category includes cities such as
Algiers
Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques ...
,
Orlando,
Porto
Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...
,
Turin
Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...
and
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
. Nantes has been praised for its
quality of life
Quality of life (QOL) is defined by the World Health Organization as "an individual's perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards ...
, and it received the
European Green Capital Award
The European Green Capital Award is an award for a European city based on its environmental record. The award was launched on 22 May 2008 and the first award was given to Stockholm for the year 2010. The European Commission has long recognised ...
in 2013. The
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...
noted the city's efforts to reduce air pollution and CO
2 emissions, its high-quality and well-managed public transport system and its
biodiversity
Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...
, with of green space and several protected
Natura 2000
Natura 2000 is a network of nature protection areas in the territory of the European Union. It is made up of Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protection Areas designated under the Habitats Directive and the Birds Directive, respectively ...
areas.
Etymology
![Confluence of Erdre and Loire, Nantes, France, 1890s](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Confluence_of_Erdre_and_Loire%2C_Nantes%2C_France%2C_1890s.jpg)
Nantes is named after a tribe of
Gaul
Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...
, the
Namnetes
The Namnetes were a Gallic tribe dwelling near the modern city of Nantes during the Iron Age and the Roman period. Name
They are mentioned as ''Namnitō͂n'' (Ναμνιτῶν) by Polybius (2nd c. BC) and Strabo (early 1st c. AD), ''Namnetes'' ...
, who established a settlement between the end of the second century and the beginning of the first century BC on the north bank of the Loire near its
confluence
In geography, a confluence (also: ''conflux'') occurs where two or more flowing bodies of water join to form a single channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main stem); o ...
with the
Erdre
The Erdre (; br, Erzh) is a long river in western France, right tributary to the Loire. Its source is in the Maine-et-Loire '' department'', near La Pouëze. It flows through the ''departments'' Maine-et-Loire and Loire-Atlantique. The Erdre me ...
. The origin of the name ''Namnetes'' is uncertain, but is thought to come from the Gaulish root *''nant-'' 'river, stream' (from the pre-Celtic root ''*nanto'' 'valley') or from ''Amnites'', another tribal name possibly meaning 'men of the river'.
Its first recorded name was by the Greek writer
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
, who referred to the settlement as () and ()—which might be read as ()—in his treatise, ''
Geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...
''. The name was
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
ised during the
Gallo-Roman period as (the most common form), , and . Although its origins are unclear, seems to be related to the
Gaulish
Gaulish was an ancient Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium ...
word 'confluence'.
The Namnete root of the city's name was introduced at the end of the Roman period, when it became known as "port of the Namnetes" and 'city of the Namnetes'. Like other cities in the region (including
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
), its name was replaced during the fourth century with a
Gaulish
Gaulish was an ancient Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium ...
one:
Lutetia became
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
(city of the
Parisii), and Darioritum became
Vannes
Vannes (; br, Gwened) is a commune in the Morbihan department in Brittany in north-western France. It was founded over 2,000 years ago.
History Celtic Era
The name ''Vannes'' comes from the Veneti, a seafaring Celtic people who lived ...
(city of the
Veneti). Nantes' name continued to evolve, becoming and during the fifth century and Nantes after the sixth, via
syncope (suppression of the middle syllable).
Modern pronunciation and nicknames
''Nantes'' is pronounced , and the city's inhabitants are known as ''Nantais'' . In
Gallo
Gallo may refer to:
*Related to Gaul:
** Gallo-Roman culture
**Gallo language, a regional language of France
**Gallo-Romance, a branch of Romance languages
**Gallo-Italic or Gallo-Italian language, a branch spoken in Northern Italy of the Romance ...
, the
oïl language traditionally spoken in the region around Nantes, the city is spelled ''Naunnt'' or ''Nantt'' and pronounced identically to French, although northern speakers use a long . In
Breton
Breton most often refers to:
*anything associated with Brittany, and generally
** Breton people
** Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany
** Breton (horse), a breed
**Ga ...
, Nantes is known as or , the latter of which is less common and reflects the more-frequent use of articles in Breton
toponyms
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
than in French ones.
Nantes' historical nickname was "Venice of the West" (), a reference to the many quays and river channels in the old town before they were filled in during the 1920s and 1930s. The city is commonly known as "the City of the
Dukes ">f Brittany for its castle and former role as a ducal residence.
History
Prehistory and antiquity
![Enceinte gallo-romaine Nantes detail](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Enceinte_gallo-romaine_Nantes_detail.jpg)
The first inhabitants of what is now Nantes settled during the
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
, later than in the surrounding regions (which have
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
monuments absent from Nantes). Its first inhabitants were apparently attracted by small iron and
tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal.
Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
deposits in the region's subsoil. The area exported tin, mined in
Abbaretz
Abbaretz (; br, Abarrez) is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in the Pays de la Loire region of western France.
The inhabitants of the commune are known as ''Abbarois'' or ''Abbaroises''.
Geography
Abbaretz is located 20 km so ...
and
Piriac, as far as
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
. After about 1,000 years of trading, local industry appeared around 900 BC; remnants of
smithies dated to the eighth and seventh centuries BC have been found in the city. Nantes may have been the major Gaulish settlement of Corbilo, on the Loire estuary, which was mentioned by the Greek historians
Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...
and
Polybius
Polybius (; grc-gre, Πολύβιος, ; ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail.
Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed ...
.
Its history from the seventh century to the Roman conquest in the first century BC is poorly documented, and there is no evidence of a city in the area before the reign of
Tiberius
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...
in the first century AD. During the
Gaul
Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...
ish period it was the capital of the
Namnetes
The Namnetes were a Gallic tribe dwelling near the modern city of Nantes during the Iron Age and the Roman period. Name
They are mentioned as ''Namnitō͂n'' (Ναμνιτῶν) by Polybius (2nd c. BC) and Strabo (early 1st c. AD), ''Namnetes'' ...
people, who were allied with the
Veneti in a territory extending to the northern bank of the Loire. Rivals in the area included the
Pictones, who controlled the area south of the Loire in the city of Ratiatum (present-day
Rezé
Rezé (; br, Reudied, Gallo
Gallo may refer to:
*Related to Gaul:
** Gallo-Roman culture
**Gallo language, a regional language of France
**Gallo-Romance, a branch of Romance languages
**Gallo-Italic or Gallo-Italian language, a branch spoken ...
) until the end of the second century AD. Ratiatum, founded under
Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...
, developed more quickly than Nantes and was a major port in the region. Nantes began to grow when Ratiatum collapsed after the
Germanic invasions
The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...
.
Because tradesmen favoured inland roads rather than Atlantic routes, Nantes never became a large city under Roman occupation. Although it lacked amenities such as a
theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
or an
amphitheatre
An amphitheatre (British English) or amphitheater (American English; both ) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ('), from ('), meaning "on both sides" or "around" and ...
, the city had sewers,
public baths and a temple dedicated to
Mars Mullo. After an attack by German tribes in 275, Nantes' inhabitants built a wall; this defense also became common in surrounding Gaulish towns. The wall in Nantes, enclosing , was one of the largest in Gaul.
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
was introduced during the third century. The first local
martyr
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
s (
Donatian and Rogatian) were executed in 288–290, and a cathedral was built during the fourth century.
Middle Ages
![Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Nantes - façade](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Cath%C3%A9drale_Saint-Pierre_de_Nantes_-_fa%C3%A7ade.jpg)
Like much of the region, Nantes was part of the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
during the early Middle Ages. Although many parts of
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...
experienced significant Breton immigration (loosening ties to Rome), Nantes remained allied with the empire until its collapse in the fifth century. Around 490, the
Franks
The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...
under
Clovis I
Clovis ( la, Chlodovechus; reconstructed Frankish: ; – 27 November 511) was the first king of the Franks to unite all of the Frankish tribes under one ruler, changing the form of leadership from a group of petty kings to rule by a single kin ...
captured the city (alongside eastern Brittany) from the
Visigoths
The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is ...
after a sixty-day siege; it was used as a stronghold against the
Bretons
The Bretons (; br, Bretoned or ''Vretoned,'' ) are a Celts, Celtic ethnic group native to Brittany. They trace much of their heritage to groups of Common Brittonic, Brittonic speakers who emigrated from Dumnonia, southwestern Great Britain, par ...
. Under
Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy ...
in the eighth century the town was the capital of the
Breton March
The Marches of Neustria (french: Marches de Neustrie; br, Marz Neustria; Norman: ''Maurches de Neûtrie'') were two marches created in 861 by the Carolingian king of West Francia Charles the Bald. They were ruled by officials appointed by the Mon ...
, a buffer zone protecting the
Carolingian Empire
The Carolingian Empire (800–888) was a large Frankish-dominated empire in western and central Europe during the Early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as kings of the Franks since 751 and as kings of the Lom ...
from Breton invasion. The first governor of the Breton March was
Roland
Roland (; frk, *Hrōþiland; lat-med, Hruodlandus or ''Rotholandus''; it, Orlando or ''Rolando''; died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the ...
, whose feats were mythologized in the body of literature known as the
Matter of France
The Matter of France, also known as the Carolingian cycle, is a body of literature and legendary material associated with the history of France, in particular involving Charlemagne and his associates. The cycle springs from the Old French '' chan ...
. After Charlemagne's death in 814, Breton armies invaded the March and fought the Franks.
Nominoe (a Breton) became the first duke of Brittany, seizing Nantes in 850. Discord marked the first decades of Breton rule in Nantes as Breton lords fought among themselves, making the city vulnerable to
Viking
Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden),
who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
incursions. The most spectacular Viking attack in Nantes occurred in 843, when Viking warriors killed the bishop but did not settle in the city at that time. Nantes became part of the Viking realm in 919, but the Norse were expelled from the town in 937 by
Alan II, Duke of Brittany.
Feudalism
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...
took hold in France during the 10th and 11th centuries, and Nantes was the seat of a
county
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
founded in the ninth century. Until the beginning of the 13th century, it was the subject of succession crises which saw the town pass several times from the
Dukes of Brittany
This is a list of rulers of the Duchy of Brittany. In different epochs the sovereigns of Brittany were kings, princes, and dukes. The Breton ruler was sometimes elected, sometimes attained the position by conquest or intrigue, or by hereditary r ...
to the counts of
Anjou Anjou may refer to:
Geography and titles France
*County of Anjou, a historical county in France and predecessor of the Duchy of Anjou
**Count of Anjou, title of nobility
*Duchy of Anjou, a historical duchy and later a province of France
**Duke ...
(of the
House of Plantagenet
The House of Plantagenet () was a royal house which originated from the lands of Anjou in France. The family held the English throne from 1154 (with the accession of Henry II at the end of the Anarchy) to 1485, when Richard III died in b ...
). During the 14th century, Brittany experienced a
war of succession which ended with the accession of the
House of Montfort
House of Montfort was a medieval French noble house that eventually found its way to the Kingdom of England and originated the famous Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester; although his father Simon de Monfort the Elder, leader of the French ...
to the ducal throne. The Montforts, seeking emancipation from the
suzerainty
Suzerainty () is the rights and obligations of a person, state or other polity who controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy. While the subordinate party is cal ...
of the French kings, reinforced Breton institutions. They chose Nantes, the largest town in Brittany (with a population of over 10,000), as their main residence and made it the home of their council, their
treasury
A treasury is either
*A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry.
*A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or in p ...
and their
chancery. Port traffic, insignificant during the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, became the city's main activity. Nantes began to trade with foreign countries, exporting
salt
Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...
from
Bourgneuf, wine, fabrics and hemp (usually to the
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...
). The 15th century is considered Nantes' first golden age. The reign of
Francis II saw many improvements to a city in dire need of repair after the wars of succession and a series of storms and fires between 1387 and 1415. Many buildings were built or rebuilt (including the cathedral and the castle), and the
University of Nantes
The University of Nantes (french: Université de Nantes) is a public university located in the city of Nantes, France. In addition to the several campuses scattered in the city of Nantes, there are two satellite campuses located in Saint-Nazaire a ...
, the first in Brittany, was founded in 1460.
Modern era
![Nantes - Cours Cambronne 02](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Nantes_-_Cours_Cambronne_02.jpg)
The marriage of
Anne of Brittany
Anne of Brittany (; 25/26 January 1477 – 9 January 1514) was reigning Duchess of Brittany from 1488 until her death, and Queen of France from 1491 to 1498 and from 1499 to her death. She is the only woman to have been queen consort of France ...
to
Charles VIII of France
Charles VIII, called the Affable (french: l'Affable; 30 June 1470 – 7 April 1498), was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. He succeeded his father Louis XI at the age of 13.Paul Murray Kendall, ''Louis XI: The Universal Spider'' (Ne ...
in 1491 began the unification of France and Brittany which was ratified by
Francis I of France
Francis I (french: François Ier; frm, Francoys; 12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547) was King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his first cousin once ...
in 1532. The union ended a long feudal conflict between France and Brittany, reasserting the king's suzerainty over the Bretons. In return for surrendering its independence, Brittany retained its privileges. Although most Breton institutions were maintained, the unification favoured
Rennes
Rennes (; br, Roazhon ; Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France at the confluence of the Ille and the Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department ...
(the site of ducal coronations). Rennes received most legal and administrative institutions, and Nantes kept a financial role with its Chamber of Accounts. During the
French Wars of Religion
The French Wars of Religion is the term which is used in reference to a period of civil war between French Catholic Church, Catholics and Protestantism, Protestants, commonly called Huguenots, which lasted from 1562 to 1598. According to estim ...
from 1562 to 1598, the city was a
Catholic League stronghold. The
Duke of Mercœur
The Seigneurs and Dukes of Mercœur were a line of powerful lords deriving their name from the estate of Mercœur in Auvergne (province), Auvergne, France. The line became extinct in the 14th century, and passed by inheritance to the Dauphin of Auv ...
, governor of Brittany, strongly opposed the succession of the Protestant
Henry IV of France
Henry IV (french: Henri IV; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithets Good King Henry or Henry the Great, was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarc ...
to the throne of France in 1589. The Duke created an independent government in Nantes, allying with Spain and pressing for independence from France. Despite initial successes with Spanish aid, in 1598 he submitted to Henry IV (who had by then converted to Catholicism); the
Edict of Nantes
The Edict of Nantes () was signed in April 1598 by King Henry IV and granted the Calvinist Protestants of France, also known as Huguenots, substantial rights in the nation, which was in essence completely Catholic. In the edict, Henry aimed pr ...
(legalising
Protestantism
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
in France) was signed in the town, concluding the French wars of religion. Nonetheless, the town remained fervently Catholic (by contrast to nearby
La Rochelle
La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle''; oc, La Rochèla ) is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. With ...
), and the local Protestant community did not number more than 1,000.
Coastal navigation and the export of locally produced goods (salt, wine and fabrics) dominated the local economy around 1600. During the mid-17th century, the
siltation of local
salterns and a fall in wine exports compelled Nantes to find other activities. Local shipowners began importing sugar from the French West Indies (
Martinique
Martinique ( , ; gcf, label=Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago: or ) is an island and an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of the French Republic, Martinique is located in th ...
,
Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe (; ; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Gwadloup, ) is an archipelago and overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands—Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galante, La Désirade, and the ...
and
Saint-Domingue
Saint-Domingue () was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1659 to 1804. The name derives from the Spanish main city in the island, Santo Domingo, which came to refer ...
) in the 1640s, which became very profitable after
protectionist reforms implemented by
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert (; 29 August 1619 – 6 September 1683) was a French statesman who served as First Minister of State from 1661 until his death in 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His lasting impact on the organization of the countr ...
prevented the import of sugar from Spanish colonies (which had dominated the market). In 1664 Nantes was France's eighth-largest port, and it was the largest by 1700. Plantations in the colonies needed labour to produce sugar, rum, tobacco, indigo dye, coffee and cocoa, and Nantes shipowners began trading
African slaves
Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were common in parts of Africa in ancient times, as they were in much of the rest of the ancient world. When the trans-Saharan slave trade, Indian Ocean sl ...
in 1706. The port was part of the
triangular trade
Triangular trade or triangle trade is trade between three ports or regions. Triangular trade usually evolves when a region has export commodities that are not required in the region from which its major imports come. It has been used to offset t ...
: ships went to
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Maurit ...
to buy slaves, slaves were sold in the French West Indies, and the ships returned to Nantes with sugar and other exotic goods. From 1707 to 1793, Nantes was responsible for 42 percent of the French slave trade; its merchants sold about 450,000 African slaves in the West Indies.
Manufactured goods were more lucrative than raw materials during the 18th century. There were about fifteen sugar refineries in the city around 1750 and nine
cotton mills in 1786. Nantes and its surrounding area were the main producers of French printed cotton fabric during the 18th century, and the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
was the city's largest client for exotic goods. Although trade brought wealth to Nantes, the city was confined by its walls; their removal during the 18th century allowed it to expand.
Neoclassical squares and public buildings were constructed, and wealthy merchants built sumptuous ''
hôtels particuliers''.
French Revolution
![Noyades Nantes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Noyades_Nantes.jpg)
The
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
initially received some support in Nantes, a
bourgeois
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
city rooted in private enterprise. On 18 July 1789, locals seized the
Castle of the Dukes of Brittany in an imitation of the
storming of the Bastille. Rural western France, Catholic and conservative, strongly opposed the abolition of the monarchy and the submission of the
clergy
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
. A
rebellion in the neighbouring Vendée began in 1793, quickly spreading to surrounding regions. Nantes was an important Republican garrison on the Loire en route to
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. On 29 June 1793, 30,000 Royalist troops from Vendée attacked the city on their way to Normandy (where they hoped to receive British support). Twelve thousand Republican soldiers resisted and the
Battle of Nantes
The Battle of Nantes was a battle between Royalist and Republican French forces at Nantes on 29 June 1793 during the War in the Vendée
The war in the Vendée (french: link=no, Guerre de Vendée) was a counter-revolution from 1793 to ...
resulted in the death of Royalist leader
Jacques Cathelineau
Generalissimo Jacques Cathelineau (5 January 1759 – 14 July 1793) was a French Vendéan insurrectionist leader during the Revolution. He was known among his followers as the Saint of Anjou.
He was a well known peddler in Anjou. When the King ...
. Three years later another Royalist leader,
François de Charette
François Athanase de Charette de la Contrie (2 May 1763 – 29 March 1796) was a Franco-Breton Royalist soldier and politician. He served in the French Navy during the American Revolutionary War and was one of the leaders of the Revolt in the V ...
, was executed in Nantes.
After the Battle of Nantes, the
National Convention
The National Convention (french: link=no, Convention nationale) was the parliament of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for the rest of its existence during the French Revolution, following the two-year National ...
(which had founded the
First French Republic
In the history of France, the First Republic (french: Première République), sometimes referred to in historiography as Revolutionary France, and officially the French Republic (french: République française), was founded on 21 September 1792 ...
) decided to purge the city of its anti-revolutionary elements. Nantes was seen by the convention as a corrupt merchant city; the local elite was less supportive of the French Revolution, since its growing centralisation reduced their influence. From October 1793 to February 1794, deputy
Jean-Baptiste Carrier presided over a revolutionary tribunal notorious for cruelty and ruthlessness. Between 12,000 and 13,000 people (including women and children) were arrested, and 8,000 to 11,000 died of
typhus
Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure.
...
or were executed by the
guillotine, shooting or drowning. The
Drownings at Nantes
The drownings at Nantes (french: noyades de Nantes) were a series of mass executions by drowning during the Reign of Terror in Nantes, France, that occurred between November 1793 and February 1794. During this period, anyone arrested and jailed ...
were intended to kill large numbers of people simultaneously, and Carrier called the Loire "the national bathtub".
The French Revolution was disastrous for the local economy. The slave trade nearly disappeared because of the abolition of slavery and the independence of
Saint-Domingue
Saint-Domingue () was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1659 to 1804. The name derives from the Spanish main city in the island, Santo Domingo, which came to refer ...
, and Napoleon's
Continental Blockade
The Continental Blockade (), or Continental System, was a large-scale embargo against British trade by Napoleon Bonaparte against the British Empire from 21 November 1806 until 11 April 1814, during the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon issued the Berlin ...
decimated trade with other European countries. Nantes never fully recovered its 18th-century wealth; the port handled 43,242 tons of goods in 1807, down from 237,716 tons in 1790.
Industries
![Nantes, La Loire et Le Pont Transbordeur en 1912](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Nantes%2C_La_Loire_et_Le_Pont_Transbordeur_en_1912.jpg)
Outlawed by the French Revolution, the slave trade re-established itself as Nantes' major source of income in the first decades of the 19th century. It was the last French port to conduct the illegal Atlantic trade, continuing it until about 1827. The 19th-century slave trade may have been as extensive as that of the previous century, with about 400,000 slaves deported to the colonies. Businessmen took advantage of local vegetable production and Breton fishing to develop a
canning
Canning is a method of food preservation in which food is processed and sealed in an airtight container (jars like Mason jars, and steel and tin cans). Canning provides a shelf life that typically ranges from one to five years, although u ...
industry during the 1820s, but canning was eclipsed by sugar imported from
Réunion
Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island ...
in the 1840s and 1850s. Nantes tradesmen received a tax rebate on Réunion sugar, which was lucrative until disease devastated the cane plantations in 1863. By the mid-19th century,
Le Havre
Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very cl ...
and
Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
were the two main French ports; the former traded with
America
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and the latter with
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
. They had embraced the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
, thanks to
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
ian investments; Nantes lagged behind, struggling to find profitable activities. Nostalgic for the pre-revolutionary golden age, the local elite had been suspicious of political and technological progress during the first half of the 19th century. In 1851, after much debate and opposition, Nantes was connected to Paris by the
Tours–Saint-Nazaire railway
The railway from Tours to Saint-Nazaire is an important French 282-kilometre long railway line, following the lower course of the river Loire. It is used for passenger (express, regional and suburban) and freight traffic. The railway was opened i ...
.
Nantes became a major industrial city during the second half of the 19th century with the aid of several families who invested in successful businesses. In 1900, the city's two main industries were food processing and shipbuilding. The former, primarily the canning industry, included the biscuit manufacturer
LU and the latter was represented by three shipyards which were among the largest in France. These industries helped maintain port activity and facilitated agriculture, sugar imports, fertilizer production, machinery and metallurgy, which employed 12,000 people in Nantes and its surrounding area in 1914. Because large, modern ships had increased difficulty traversing the Loire to reach Nantes, a new port in
Saint-Nazaire
Saint-Nazaire (; ; Gallo: ''Saint-Nazère/Saint-Nazaer'') is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany.
The town has a major harbour on the right bank of the Loire estuary, near the Atlantic Ocean ...
had been established at the mouth of the estuary in 1835. Saint-Nazaire, primarily developed for goods to be
transhipped
Transshipment, trans-shipment or transhipment is the shipment of goods or containers to an intermediate destination, then to another destination.
One possible reason for transshipment is to change the means of transport during the journey (e.g. ...
before being sent to Nantes, also built rival shipyards. Saint-Nazaire surpassed Nantes in port traffic for the first time in 1868. Reacting to the growth of the rival port, Nantes built a canal parallel to the Loire to remain accessible to large ships. The canal, completed in 1892, was abandoned in 1910 because of the efficient dredging of the Loire between 1903 and 1914.
Land reclamation
![Nantes comblements](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Nantes_comblements.png)
At the beginning of the 20th century, the river channels flowing through Nantes were increasingly perceived as hampering the city's comfort and economic development. Sand siltation required dredging, which weakened the quays; one quay collapsed in 1924. Embankments were overcrowded with railways, roads and tramways. Between 1926 and 1946, most of the channels were filled in and their water diverted. Large thoroughfares replaced the channels, altering the urban landscape. Feydeau and Gloriette Islands in the old town were attached to the north bank, and the other islands in the Loire were formed into the
Isle of Nantes.
When the
land reclamation
Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new land from oceans, seas, riverbeds or lake beds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamati ...
was almost complete, Nantes was shaken by the air raids of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. The city was captured by
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
on 18 June 1940, during the
Battle of France
The Battle of France (french: bataille de France) (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign ('), the French Campaign (german: Frankreichfeldzug, ) and the Fall of France, was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of French Third Rep ...
. Forty-eight civilians were executed in Nantes in 1941 in retaliation for the assassination of German officer
Karl Hotz. They are remembered as "the 50 hostages" because the Germans initially planned to kill 50 people. British bombs first hit the city in August 1941 and May 1942. The main attacks occurred on 16 and 23 September 1943, when most of Nantes' industrial facilities and portions of the city centre and its surrounding area were destroyed by American bombs. About 20,000 people were left homeless by the 1943 raids, and 70,000 subsequently left the city. Allied raids killed 1,732 people and destroyed 2,000 buildings in Nantes, leaving a further 6,000 buildings unusable. The Germans abandoned the city on 12 August 1944, and it was recaptured without a fight by the
French Forces of the Interior and the U.S. Army.
Postwar
The postwar years were a period of strikes and protests in Nantes. A strike organised by the city's 17,500 metallurgists during the summer of 1955 to protest salary disparities between
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
and the rest of France deeply impacted the French political scene, and their action was echoed in other cities. Nantes saw other large strikes and demonstrations during the
May 1968 events, when marches drew about 20,000 people into the streets. The
1970s global recession brought a large wave of
deindustrialisation
Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially of heavy industry or manufacturing industry.
There are different interpre ...
to France, and Nantes saw the closure of many factories and the city's shipyards. The 1970s and 1980s were primarily a period of economic stagnation for Nantes. During the 1980s and 1990s its economy became service-oriented and it experienced economic growth under
Jean-Marc Ayrault, the city's mayor from 1989 to 2012. Under Ayrault's administration, Nantes used its quality of life to attract service firms. The city developed a rich cultural life, advertising itself as a creative place near the ocean. Institutions and facilities (such as its airport) were re-branded as "Nantes Atlantique" to highlight this proximity. Local authorities have commemorated the legacy of the slave trade, promoting dialogue with other cultures.
Nantes has been noted in recent years for its climate of social unrest, marked by frequent and often violent clashes between protesters and police. Tear gas is frequently deployed during protests. The city has a significant
ultra-left radical scene, owing in part to the proximity of the
ZAD de Notre-Dame-des-Landes
ZAD de Notre-Dame-des-Landes (also known as ZAD NDDL) is the most well-known 'Zone to Defend' in France. Located in the Loire-Atlantique department near to Nantes, it is a very large, mostly agricultural terrain of 1,650 hectares (4,080 acres) wh ...
. Masked rioters have repeatedly ransacked shops, offices and public transport infrastructure. The
death of Steve Maia Caniço in June 2019 has led to accusations of police brutality and cover-ups.
Geography
Location
![Nantes SPOT 1247](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Nantes_SPOT_1247.jpg)
Nantes is in north-western France, near the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
and south-west of
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
.
Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...
, the other major metropolis of western France, is south. Nantes and Bordeaux share positions at the mouth of an estuary, and Nantes is on the
Loire
The Loire (, also ; ; oc, Léger, ; la, Liger) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône ...
estuary.
The city is at a natural crossroads between the ocean in the west, the centre of France (towards
Orléans
Orléans (;["Orleans"](_blank)
(US) and [Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...]
in the north and
Vendée
Vendée (; br, Vande) is a department in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France, on the Atlantic coast. In 2019, it had a population of 685,442. (on the way to Bordeaux) in the south. It is an architectural junction; northern French houses with slate roofs are north of the Loire, and
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...
dwellings with low
terracotta
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous.
In applied art, craft, construction, a ...
roofs dominate the south bank. The Loire is also the northern limit of grape culture. Land north of Nantes is dominated by
bocage
Bocage (, ) is a terrain of mixed woodland and pasture characteristic of parts of Northern France, Southern England, Ireland, the Netherlands and Northern Germany, in regions where pastoral farming is the dominant land use.
''Bocage'' may als ...
and dedicated to
polyculture
In agriculture, polyculture is the practice of growing more than one crop species in the same space, at the same time. In doing this, polyculture attempts to mimic the diversity of natural ecosystems. Polyculture is the opposite of monoculture, i ...
and
animal husbandry
Animal husbandry is the branch of agriculture concerned with animals that are raised for meat, fibre, milk, or other products. It includes day-to-day care, selective breeding, and the raising of livestock. Husbandry has a long history, starti ...
, and the south is renowned for its
Muscadet
Muscadet ( , , ) is a French wine, French white wine. It is made at the western end of the Loire Valley (wine), Loire Valley, near the city of Nantes in the Pays de la Loire region. It is made from the Melon de Bourgogne grape, often referred t ...
vineyards and market gardens. The city is near the geographical centre of the
land hemisphere
The land hemisphere and water hemisphere are the hemispheres of Earth containing the largest possible total areas of land and ocean, respectively. By definition (assuming that the entire surface can be classed as either "land" or "ocean"), the t ...
, identified in 1945 by Samuel Boggs as near the main railway station (around ).
Hydrology
![Nantes - Erdre](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Nantes_-_Erdre.jpg)
The Loire is about long and its estuary, beginning in Nantes, is in length. The river's bed and banks have changed considerably over a period of centuries. In Nantes the Loire had divided into a number of channels, creating a dozen islands and sand ridges. They facilitated crossing the river, contributing to the city's growth. Most of the islands were protected with
levee
A levee (), dike (American English), dyke (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is a structure that is usually soil, earthen and that often runs parallel (geometry), parallel to ...
s during the
modern era
The term modern period or modern era (sometimes also called modern history or modern times) is the period of history that succeeds the Middle Ages (which ended approximately 1500 AD). This terminology is a historical periodization that is applie ...
, and they disappeared in the 1920s and 1930s when the smallest waterways were filled in. The Loire in Nantes now has only two branches, one on either side of the Isle of Nantes.
The river is
tidal
Tidal is the adjectival form of tide.
Tidal may also refer to:
* Tidal (album), ''Tidal'' (album), a 1996 album by Fiona Apple
* Tidal (king), a king involved in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim
* TidalCycles, a live coding environment for music
* ...
in the city, and tides are observed about further east. The tidal range can reach in Nantes, larger than at the mouth of the estuary. This is the result of 20th-century dredging to make Nantes accessible by large ships; tides were originally much weaker. Nantes was at the point where the river current and the tides cancelled each other out, resulting in siltation and the formation of the original islands.
The city is at the confluence of two tributaries. The
Erdre
The Erdre (; br, Erzh) is a long river in western France, right tributary to the Loire. Its source is in the Maine-et-Loire '' department'', near La Pouëze. It flows through the ''departments'' Maine-et-Loire and Loire-Atlantique. The Erdre me ...
flows into the Loire from its north bank, and the
Sèvre Nantaise
The Sèvre Nantaise () is a river in the Pays de la Loire regions in western France. It is a left-bank tributary of the Loire. Its total length is . Its source is in the Deux-Sèvres department, near Secondigny. It flows from south to north thro ...
flows into the Loire from its south bank. These two rivers initially provided natural links with the hinterland. When the channels of the Loire were filled, the Erdre was diverted in central Nantes and its confluence with the Loire was moved further east. The Erdre includes Versailles Island, which became a Japanese garden during the 1980s. It was created in the 19th century with fill from construction of the
Nantes–Brest canal
The Nantes–Brest canal (french: Canal de Nantes à Brest, ; br, Kanol Naoned-Brest) is a French canal which links the two seaports of Nantes and Brest through inland Brittany. It was built in the early 19th century, and its total length as buil ...
.
Geology
![Plan relief Nantes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Plan_relief_Nantes.svg)
Nantes is built on the
Armorican Massif, a range of weathered mountains which may be considered the backbone of Brittany. The mountains, stretching from the end of the Breton peninsula to the outskirts of the
sedimentary
Sedimentary rocks are types of rock (geology), rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic matter, organic particles at Earth#Surface, Earth's surface, followed by cementation (geology), cementation. Sedimentati ...
Paris Basin, are composed of several parallel ridges of
Ordovician and
Cadomian rocks. Nantes is where one of these ridges, the Sillon de Bretagne, meets the Loire. It passes through the western end of the old town, forming a series of cliffs above the quays. The end of the ridge, the Butte Sainte-Anne, is a natural landmark
above sea level
Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''.
The comb ...
; its
foothills
Foothills or piedmont are geographically defined as gradual increases in elevation at the base of a mountain range, higher hill range or an upland area. They are a transition zone between plains and low relief hills and the adjacent topograp ...
are at an elevation of .
The Sillon de Bretagne is composed of
granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
; the rest of the region is a series of low
plateau
In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; ), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. Often one or more sides ha ...
s covered with
silt
Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel when ...
and
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
, with
mica
Micas ( ) are a group of silicate minerals whose outstanding physical characteristic is that individual mica crystals can easily be split into extremely thin elastic plates. This characteristic is described as perfect basal cleavage. Mica is ...
schist
Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes o ...
and sediments found in lower areas. Much of the old town and all of the Isle of Nantes consist of backfill. Elevations in Nantes are generally higher in the western neighbourhoods on the Sillon, reaching in the north-west. The
Erdre
The Erdre (; br, Erzh) is a long river in western France, right tributary to the Loire. Its source is in the Maine-et-Loire '' department'', near La Pouëze. It flows through the ''departments'' Maine-et-Loire and Loire-Atlantique. The Erdre me ...
flows through a slate fault. Eastern Nantes is flatter, with a few hills reaching . The city's lowest points, along the Loire, are above sea level.
Climate
Nantes has an
oceanic climate
An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ( ...
(
Köppen: ''Cfb'') influenced by its proximity to the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
.
West wind
A west wind is a wind that originates in the west and blows in an eastward direction.
Mythology and Literature
In European tradition, it has usually been considered the mildest and most favorable of the directional winds.
In Greek mythology, ...
s produced by cyclonic depressions in the Atlantic dominate, and north and north-west winds are also common. The climatic conditions allow to be typically in this zone with almost no influence of the continent as in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, the city has strict variations of temperatures and few freezing days in average annual, in addition to a precipitation higher, but also being able to be described informally as a "Mediterranean altered" for 1971–2000 normals. Rainfall and its pattern exemplifies this (winters rainier than other seasons), although it is a relatively high total fall in every month (too high average temperature), but in the future may be closer to a dry summer defined if trends persist.
Slight variations in elevation make fog common in valleys, and slopes oriented south and south-west have good
insolation
Solar irradiance is the power per unit area (surface power density) received from the Sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range of the measuring instrument.
Solar irradiance is measured in watts per square metre (W/m ...
. Winters are cool and rainy, with an average temperature of ; snow is rare. Summers are warm, with an average temperature of . Rain is abundant through the year, with an annual average of . The climate in Nantes is suitable for growing a variety of plants, from temperate vegetables to exotic trees and flowers imported during the colonial era.
Urban layout
![Boulevard de Launay (Nantes) 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Boulevard_de_Launay_%28Nantes%29_1.JPG)
Nantes' layout is typical of French towns and cities. It has a historical centre with old monuments, administrative buildings and small shops, surrounded by 19th-century
faubourg
"Faubourg" () is an ancient French term historically equivalent to " fore-town" (now often termed suburb or ). The earliest form is , derived from Latin , 'out of', and Vulgar Latin (originally Germanic) , 'town' or 'fortress'. Traditionally, th ...
s surrounded by newer suburban houses and
public housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...
. The city centre has a medieval core (corresponding to the former walled town) and 18th-century extensions running west and east. The northern extension, Marchix, was considered squalid and nearly disappeared during the 20th century. The old town did not extend south before the 19th century, since it would have meant building on the unsteady islands in the Loire.
The medieval core has narrow streets and a mixture of half-timbered buildings, more recent sandstone buildings, post-
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
reconstruction and modern redevelopment. It is primarily a student neighbourhood, with many bars and small shops. The eastern extension (behind
Nantes Cathedral) was traditionally inhabited by the
aristocracy
Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'.
At t ...
, and the larger western extension along the Loire was built for the
bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
. It is Nantes' most-expensive area, with wide avenues, squares and ''
hôtels particuliers''. The area was extended towards the Parc de Procé during the 19th century. The other faubourgs were built along the main boulevards and the plateaus, turning the valleys into parks. Outside central Nantes several villages, including Chantenay, Doulon, L'Eraudière and Saint-Joseph-de-Porterie, were absorbed by urbanisation.
![Nantes 2005 7](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Nantes_2005_7.jpg)
After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, several
housing project
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authorities, government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the d ...
s were built to accommodate Nantes' growing population. The oldest, Les Dervallières, was developed in 1956 and was followed by Bellevue in 1959 and Le Breil and Malakoff in 1971. Once areas of poverty, they are experiencing regeneration since the 2000s. The northern outskirts of the city, along the
Erdre
The Erdre (; br, Erzh) is a long river in western France, right tributary to the Loire. Its source is in the Maine-et-Loire '' department'', near La Pouëze. It flows through the ''departments'' Maine-et-Loire and Loire-Atlantique. The Erdre me ...
, include the main campus of the
University of Nantes
The University of Nantes (french: Université de Nantes) is a public university located in the city of Nantes, France. In addition to the several campuses scattered in the city of Nantes, there are two satellite campuses located in Saint-Nazaire a ...
and other institutes of higher education. During the second half of the 20th century, Nantes expanded south into the
communes of
Rezé
Rezé (; br, Reudied, Gallo
Gallo may refer to:
*Related to Gaul:
** Gallo-Roman culture
**Gallo language, a regional language of France
**Gallo-Romance, a branch of Romance languages
**Gallo-Italic or Gallo-Italian language, a branch spoken ...
,
Vertou
Vertou (; br, Gwerzhav) is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France.
It is located on the river Sèvre Nantaise, and was a historical town of Brittany.
Today, Vertou is a component of the Nantes Métropole and is the fif ...
and
Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire
Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire (, literally ''Saint-Sébastien on Loire''; br, Sant-Sebastian-an-Enk) is a Communes of France, commune in the Loire-Atlantique Departments of France, department in western France.
It is the third-largest suburb of the ...
(across the Loire but near the city centre) and north-bank communes including
Saint-Herblain
Saint-Herblain (; br, Sant-Ervlan, ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Loire-Atlantique Departments of France, department, administrative region of Pays de la Loire (Brittany (historical province), Brittany as historical region), France.
I ...
,
Orvault
Orvault (; ) is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France.
It is the fourth-largest suburb of the city of Nantes, and is adjacent to it on the northwest.
Population
See also
*Communes of the Loire-Atlantique department
...
and
Sainte-Luce-sur-Loire
Sainte-Luce-sur-Loire (, literally ''Sainte-Luce on Loire''; ) is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France. This commune is one of 24 communes that make up the intercommunality of Nantes Metropolis.
Population
See also
*Co ...
.
The Isle of Nantes is divided between former shipyards on the west, an old faubourg in its centre and modern housing estates on the east. Since the 2000s, it has been subject to the conversion of former industrial areas into office space, housing and leisure facilities. Local authorities intend to make it an extension of the city centre. Further development is also planned on the north bank along an axis linking the train station and the Loire.
Parks and environment
![Jardin des plantes Nantes-serre](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Jardin_des_plantes_Nantes-serre.JPG)
Nantes has 100 public parks, gardens and squares covering . The oldest is the
Jardin des Plantes, a botanical garden created in 1807. It has a large collection of exotic plants, including a 200-year-old ''
Magnolia grandiflora
''Magnolia grandiflora'', commonly known as the southern magnolia or bull bay, is a tree of the family Magnoliaceae native to the Southeastern United States, from Virginia to central Florida, and west to East Texas. Reaching in height, it is a ...
'' and the national collection of ''
camellia
''Camellia'' (pronounced or ) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are found in eastern and southern Asia, from the Himalayas east to Japan and Indonesia. There are more than 220 described species, with some controversy ...
''. Other large parks include the Parc de Procé, Parc du Grand Blottereau and Parc de la Gaudinière, the former gardens of country houses built outside the old town. Natural areas, an additional , include the Petite Amazonie (a
Natura 2000
Natura 2000 is a network of nature protection areas in the territory of the European Union. It is made up of Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protection Areas designated under the Habitats Directive and the Birds Directive, respectively ...
protected forest) and several woods, meadows and marshes. Green space (public and private) makes up 41 percent of Nantes' area.
The city adopted an ecological framework in 2007 to reduce
greenhouse gas
A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorbs and Emission (electromagnetic radiation), emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse ...
es and promote
energy transition
The energy transition is the process of downshifting fossil fuels and re-developing whole systems to operate on low carbon energy sources. More generally, an energy transition is a significant structural change in an energy system regarding ...
. Nantes has three
ecodistricts (one on the Isle of Nantes, one near the train station and the third in the north-east of the city), which aim to provide affordable, ecological housing and counter
urban sprawl
Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growt ...
by redeveloping neglected areas of the city.
Governance
Local government
![Johanna Rolland, maire de Nantes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Johanna_Rolland%2C_maire_de_Nantes..jpg)
Nantes is the ''
préfecture'' (capital city) of the
Loire-Atlantique
Loire-Atlantique (; br, Liger-Atlantel; before 1957: ''Loire-Inférieure'', br, Liger-Izelañ, link=no) is a department in Pays de la Loire on the west coast of France, named after the river Loire and the Atlantic Ocean. It had a population o ...
''
département
In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: département, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level ("territorial collectivity, territorial collectivities"), between the regions of France, admin ...
'' and the
Pays de la Loire
Pays de la Loire (; ; br, Broioù al Liger) is one of the 18 regions of France, in the west of the mainland. It was created in the 1950s to serve as a zone of influence for its capital, Nantes, one of a handful of "balancing metropolises" ().
...
''
région
France is divided into eighteen administrative regions (french: régions, singular ), of which thirteen are located in metropolitan France (in Europe), while the other five are overseas regions (not to be confused with the overseas collect ...
''. It is the residence of a ''région'' and ''département'' ''prefect'', local representatives of the
French government
The Government of France ( French: ''Gouvernement français''), officially the Government of the French Republic (''Gouvernement de la République française'' ), exercises executive power in France. It is composed of the Prime Minister, who ...
. Nantes is also the meeting place of the ''région'' and ''département'' councils, two elected political bodies.
The city is administered by a mayor and a council, elected every six years. The council has 65 councillors. It originated in 1410, when
John V, Duke of Brittany
John V, sometimes numbered as VI, (24 December 1389 – 29 August 1442) bynamed John the Wise ( br, Yann ar Fur; french: Jean le Sage), was Duke of Brittany and Count of Montfort from 1399 to his death. His rule coincided with the height of t ...
created the Burghers' Council. The assembly was controlled by wealthy merchants and the Lord Lieutenant. After the union of Brittany and France, the burghers petitioned the French king to give them a city council which would enhance their freedom; their request was granted by
Francis II in 1559. The new council had a mayor, ten aldermen and a crown prosecutor. The first council was elected in 1565 with Nantes' first mayor, Geoffroy Drouet. The present city council is a result of the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
and a 4 December 1789 act. The current
mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...
of Nantes is Johanna Rolland (
Socialist Party
Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...
), who was elected on 4 April 2014. The party has held a majority since 1983, and Nantes has become a
left-wing
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
stronghold.
Since 1995 Nantes has been divided into 11 neighbourhoods (''quartiers''), each with an advisory committee and administrative agents. City-council members are appointed to each ''quartier'' to consult with the local committees. The neighbourhood committees, existing primarily to facilitate dialogue between citizens and the local government, meet twice a year.
Like most
French municipalities, Nantes is part of an
intercommunal structure which combines the city with 24 smaller, neighbouring communes. Called
Nantes Métropole
The Nantes Metropolis (french: Nantes Métropole) is the ''métropole'', an intercommunal structure, centred on the city of Nantes. It is located in the Loire-Atlantique department, in the Pays de la Loire region, western France. It was created in ...
, it encompasses the city's
metropolitan area
A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing. A metro area usually com ...
and had a population of 609,198 in 2013. Nantes Métropole administers urban planning, transport, public areas, waste disposal, energy, water, housing, higher education, economic development, employment and European topics. As a consequence, the city council's mandates are security, primary and secondary education, early childhood, social aid, culture, sport and health. Nantes Métropole, created in 1999, is administered by a council consisting of the 97 members of the local municipal councils. According to an act passed in 2014, beginning in 2020 the metropolitan council will be elected by the citizens of Nantes Métropole. The council is currently overseen by Rolland.
Heraldry
![Coat of Arms of Nantes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Coat_of_Arms_of_Nantes.svg)
Local authorities began using official symbols in the 14th century, when the provost commissioned a seal on which the Duke of Brittany stood on a boat and protected Nantes with his sword. The present coat of arms was first used in 1514; its
ermines symbolise
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...
, and its green waves suggest the Loire.
Nantes' coat of arms had ducal emblems before the French Revolution: the belt cord of the
Order of the Cord (founded by
Anne of Brittany
Anne of Brittany (; 25/26 January 1477 – 9 January 1514) was reigning Duchess of Brittany from 1488 until her death, and Queen of France from 1491 to 1498 and from 1499 to her death. She is the only woman to have been queen consort of France ...
) and the city's
coronet. The coronet was replaced by a
mural crown during the 18th century, and during the revolution a new emblem with a statue of
Liberty
Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom.
In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...
replaced the coat of arms. During Napoleon's rule the coat of arms returned, with bees (a symbol of his
empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
) added to the
chief
Chief may refer to:
Title or rank
Military and law enforcement
* Chief master sergeant, the ninth, and highest, enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force
* Chief of police, the head of a police department
* Chief of the boa ...
. The original coat of arms was readopted in 1816, and the
Liberation Cross and the
1939–45 War Cross were added in 1948.
Before the revolution, Nantes' motto was "''Oculi omnium in te sperant, Domine''" ("The eyes of all wait upon thee, O Lord", a line from a
grace
Grace may refer to:
Places United States
* Grace, Idaho, a city
* Grace (CTA station), Chicago Transit Authority's Howard Line, Illinois
* Little Goose Creek (Kentucky), location of Grace post office
* Grace, Carroll County, Missouri, an uninco ...
). It disappeared during the revolution, and the city adopted its current motto—"''Favet Neptunus eunti''" ("Neptune favours the traveller")—in 1816. Nantes' flag is derived from the naval
jack flown by Breton vessels before the French Revolution. The flag has a white cross on a black one; its
quarters have Breton ermines except for the upper left, which has the city's coat of arms. The black and white crosses are historic symbols of Brittany and France, respectively.
Nantes and Brittany
![Château de Nantes - armoiries ducales](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Nantes_-_armoiries_ducales.jpg)
Nantes and the Loire-Atlantique ''département'' were part of the historic province of
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...
, and the city and
Rennes
Rennes (; br, Roazhon ; Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France at the confluence of the Ille and the Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department ...
were its traditional capitals. In the 1789 replacement of the historic
provinces of France
The Kingdom of France was organised into provinces until the National Constituent Assembly adopted a more uniform division into departments (''départements'') and districts in late 1789. The provinces continued to exist administratively until 2 ...
, Brittany was divided among five ''
départements''. The administrative region of Brittany did not exist during the 19th and early 20th centuries, although its cultural heritage remained. Nantes and Rennes are in
Upper Brittany
Upper Brittany (french: Haute-Bretagne; br, Breizh-Uhel; Gallo: ''Haùtt-Bertaèyn'') is the eastern part of Brittany, France, which is predominantly of a Romance culture and is associated with the Gallo language. The name is in counterpoint to L ...
(the
Romance-speaking
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
part of the region), and
Lower Brittany
Lower Brittany ( br, Breizh-Izel; french: Basse-Bretagne) denotes the parts of Brittany west of Ploërmel, where the Breton language has been traditionally spoken, and where the culture associated with this language is most prolific. The name is ...
in the west is traditionally
Breton-speaking and more
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
* Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Fo ...
in culture. As a large port whose outskirts encompassed other provinces, Nantes has been Brittany's economic capital and a cultural crossroads. Breton culture in Nantes is not necessarily characteristic of Lower Brittany's, although the city experienced substantial Lower Breton immigration during the 19th century.
In the mid-20th century, several French governments considered creating a new level of local government by combining ''départements'' into larger regions. The regions, established by acts of parliament in 1955 and 1972, loosely follow the pre-revolutionary divisions and Brittany was revived as
Region Brittany. Nantes and the Loire-Atlantique ''département'' were not included, because each new region centred on one metropolis. Region Brittany was created around Rennes, similar in size to Nantes; the Loire-Atlantique ''département'' formed a new region with four other ''départements'', mainly portions of the old provinces of
Anjou Anjou may refer to:
Geography and titles France
*County of Anjou, a historical county in France and predecessor of the Duchy of Anjou
**Count of Anjou, title of nobility
*Duchy of Anjou, a historical duchy and later a province of France
**Duke ...
,
Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...
and
Poitou. The new region was called
Pays de la Loire
Pays de la Loire (; ; br, Broioù al Liger) is one of the 18 regions of France, in the west of the mainland. It was created in the 1950s to serve as a zone of influence for its capital, Nantes, one of a handful of "balancing metropolises" ().
...
("Loire Countries") although it does not include most of the
Loire Valley. It has often been said that the separation of Nantes from the rest of Brittany was decided by
Vichy France
Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its ter ...
during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
Philippe Pétain created a new Brittany without Nantes in 1941, but his region disappeared after the
liberation
Liberation or liberate may refer to:
Film and television
* ''Liberation'' (film series), a 1970–1971 series about the Great Patriotic War
* "Liberation" (''The Flash''), a TV episode
* "Liberation" (''K-9''), an episode
Gaming
* '' Liberati ...
.
Debate continues about Nantes' place in Brittany, with polls indicating a large majority in Loire-Atlantique and throughout the historic province favouring Breton reunification. In a 2014 poll, 67 percent of Breton people and 77 percent of
Loire-Atlantique
Loire-Atlantique (; br, Liger-Atlantel; before 1957: ''Loire-Inférieure'', br, Liger-Izelañ, link=no) is a department in Pays de la Loire on the west coast of France, named after the river Loire and the Atlantic Ocean. It had a population o ...
residents favoured reunification. Opponents, primarily Pays de la Loire officials, say that their region could not exist economically without Nantes. Pays de la Loire officials favour a union of Brittany with the Pays de la Loire, but Breton politicians oppose the incorporation of their region into a Greater West region. Nantes' city council has acknowledged the fact that the city is culturally part of Brittany, but its position on reunification is similar to that of the Pays de la Loire. City officials tend to consider Nantes an open metropolis with its own personality, independent of surrounding regions.
Twin towns – sister cities
Nantes is
twinned with:
*
Cardiff
Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...
, Wales, United Kingdom (1964)
*
Cluj-Napoca
; hu, kincses város)
, official_name=Cluj-Napoca
, native_name=
, image_skyline=
, subdivision_type1 = Counties of Romania, County
, subdivision_name1 = Cluj County
, subdivision_type2 = Subdivisions of Romania, Status
, subdivision_name2 ...
, Romania (1991)
*
Jacksonville, United States (1984)
*
Niigata, Japan (1999)
*
Qingdao
Qingdao (, also spelled Tsingtao; , Mandarin: ) is a major city in eastern Shandong Province. The city's name in Chinese characters literally means " azure island". Located on China's Yellow Sea coast, it is a major nodal city of the One Belt ...
, China (2005)
*
Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken (; french: link=no, Sarrebruck ; Rhine Franconian: ''Saarbrigge'' ; lb, Saarbrécken ; lat, Saravipons, lit=The Bridge(s) across the Saar river) is the capital and largest city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken is S ...
, Germany (1965)
*
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
, United States (1980)
*
Suncheon
Suncheon () (''Suncheon-si'') is a city in South Jeolla Province, South Korea. It is a scenic agricultural and industrial city of around 250,000 people near Suncheon Bay. It is located in the southeastern corner of Jeollanam-do, just over an hour ...
, South Korea (2007)
*
Tbilisi
Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the Capital city, capital and the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia, lying on the ...
, Georgia (1979)
Cooperation agreements
Partnership agreements have been signed with cities in developing countries, including:
*
Agadir, Morocco
*
Dschang
Dschang is a city located in the West (Ouest) Province of Cameroon, with an estimated population of 87,000 (est) in 2001, growing dramatically from 21,705 recorded in 1981. The 2006 Population is estimated to be 200,000 inhabitants.
Dschang is th ...
, Cameroon
*
Grand'Anse, Haiti
*
Kindia
Kindia ( N’ko: ߞߌ߲ߘߌߦߊ߫) is the fourth largest city in Guinea, lying about 85 miles northeast of the nation's capital, Conakry. Its estimated population in 2008 was 181,126. Kindia serves as the capital and largest city of Kindia Prefe ...
, Guinea
*
Recife
That it may shine on all ( Matthew 5:15)
, image_map = Brazil Pernambuco Recife location map.svg
, mapsize = 250px
, map_caption = Location in the state of Pernambuco
, pushpin_map = Brazil#South A ...
, Brazil
*
Rufisque
Rufisque ( ar, روفيسك; Wolof: Tëngeéj) is a city in the Dakar region of western Senegal, at the base of the Cap-Vert Peninsula. It has a population of 179,797 (2002 census). In the past it was an important port city in its own right, but ...
, Senegal
Population
![Unité urbaine et aire urbaine de Nantes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Unit%C3%A9_urbaine_et_aire_urbaine_de_Nantes.svg)
Nantes had 314,138 inhabitants in 2018, the largest population in its history.
[Téléchargement du fichier d'ensemble des populations légales en 2018]
INSEE Although it was the largest city in Brittany during the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, it was smaller than three other north-western towns:
Angers,
Tours
Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 ...
and
Caen
Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,[Napoleon I
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...]
(when it experienced depopulation, primarily due to the
Continental System). In 1500, the city had a population of around 14,000. Nantes' population increased to 25,000 in 1600 and to 80,000 in 1793. In 1800 it was the sixth-largest French city, behind
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
(550,000),
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
,
Marseilles
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
,
Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...
and
Rouen
Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine in northern France. It is the prefecture of the Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one of ...
(all 80,000 to 109,000). Population growth continued through the 19th century; although other European cities experienced increased growth due to industrialisation, in Nantes growth remained at its 18th-century pace. Nantes reached the 100,000 mark about 1850, and 130,000 around 1900. In 1908 it annexed the neighbouring ''
communes'' of Doulon and Chantenay, gaining almost 30,000 inhabitants. Population growth was slower during the 20th century, remaining under 260,000 from the 1960s to the 2000s primarily because urban growth spread to surrounding ''communes''. Since 2000 the population of Nantes began to rise due to redevelopment, and its
urban area
An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, t ...
has continued to experience population growth. The Nantes
metropolitan area
A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing. A metro area usually com ...
had a population of 907,995 in 2013, nearly doubling since the 1960s. Its population is projected to reach one million by 2030, based on the fertility rate.
The population of Nantes is younger than the national average, with 44.7 percent under age 29 (France 36.5 percent). People over age 60 account for 18.7 percent of the city's population (France 24 percent). Single-person households are 51.9 percent of the total, and 16.8 percent of households are families with children. Young couples with children tend to move outside the city because of high property prices, and most newcomers are students (37 percent) and adults moving for professional reasons (49 percent). Students generally come from within the region, and working people are often from
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
. In 2013, the unemployment rate was 11.4 percent of the active population (France 10 percent, Loire-Atlantique 8.5 percent). The poorest
council estates had unemployment rates of 22 to 47 percent. Of those employed, 57.8 percent are in intermediate or management positions, 24.2 percent are technicians and 13.1 percent are plant workers or similar. That year, 43.3 percent of the population over 15 had a higher-education degree and 22.3 percent had no diploma.
Ethnicity, religions and languages
![Nantes - Basilique Saint-Nicolas (détail 2)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Nantes_-_Basilique_Saint-Nicolas_%28d%C3%A9tail_2%29.jpg)
Nantes has long had ethnic minorities. Spanish, Portuguese and Italian communities were mentioned during the 16th century, and an Irish
Jacobite community appeared a century later. However, immigration has always been lower in Nantes than in other large French cities. The city's foreign population has been stable since 1990, half the average for other French cities of similar size. France does not have ethnic or religious categories in its census, but counts the number of people born in a foreign country. In 2013 this category had 24,949 people in Nantes, or 8.5 percent of the total population. The majority (60.8 percent) were 25 to 54 years old. Their primary countries of origin were Algeria (13.9 percent), Morocco (11.4 percent) and Tunisia (5.8 percent). Other African countries accounted for 24.9 percent, the European Union 15.6 percent, the rest of Europe 4.8 percent and Turkey 4.3 percent.
Nantes is historically a Catholic city, with a
cathedral
A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...
, two
minor basilica
In the Catholic Church, a basilica is a designation given by the Pope to a church building. Basilicas are distinguished for ceremonial purposes from other churches. The building need not be a basilica in the architectural sense (a rectangular ...
s, about 40 churches and around 20 chapels. Western France is traditionally religious, and the Catholic influence on Nantes was more persistent than in other large French cities. However, it has waned since the 1970s because of the rise of
atheism
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...
and
secularism
Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on Secularity, secular, Naturalism (philosophy), naturalistic considerations.
Secularism is most commonly defined as the Separation of church and state, separation of relig ...
. Although Nantes is where
Protestantism
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
was permitted in France through its
edict
An edict is a decree or announcement of a law, often associated with monarchism, but it can be under any official authority. Synonyms include "dictum" and "pronouncement".
''Edict'' derives from the Latin edictum.
Notable edicts
* Telepinu Proc ...
, Protestants have always formed a small minority. The main Protestant church belongs to the
United Protestant Church of France, but the city also has a number of newer
Evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
and
Baptist
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compete ...
churches. Nantes had a small Jewish community during the Middle Ages, but Jews were expelled from Brittany in 1240 and Judaism only reappeared after the French Revolution. The city has one
synagogue
A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...
, built in 1852. The city had several hundred Muslim inhabitants during the 1950s, but (as in the rest of France) their number increased in the second half of the 20th century with the arrival of large numbers of Africans and Turks. Nantes' first
mosque
A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...
was built in 1976, with three more built in 2010–2012.
The city is part of the territory of the
langues d'oïl
The ''langues d'oïl'' (; ) are a dialect continuum that includes standard French and its closest autochthonous relatives historically spoken in the northern half of France, southern Belgium, and the Channel Islands. These belong to the larger ...
, a
dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
which stretches across northern France and includes standard French. The local dialect in Nantes is
Gallo
Gallo may refer to:
*Related to Gaul:
** Gallo-Roman culture
**Gallo language, a regional language of France
**Gallo-Romance, a branch of Romance languages
**Gallo-Italic or Gallo-Italian language, a branch spoken in Northern Italy of the Romance ...
, spoken by some in Upper Brittany. Nantes, as a large city, has been a stronghold of standard French. A local dialect (''parler nantais'') is sometimes mentioned by the press, but its existence is dubious and its vocabulary mainly the result of rural emigration. As a result of 19th-century Lower Breton immigration,
Breton
Breton most often refers to:
*anything associated with Brittany, and generally
** Breton people
** Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany
** Breton (horse), a breed
**Ga ...
was once widely spoken in parts of Nantes. Nantes signed the charter of the
Public Office for the Breton Language in 2013. Since then, the city has supported its six bilingual schools and introduced bilingual signage.
Economy
![Tereos Nantes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Tereos_Nantes.JPG)
For centuries, Nantes' economy was linked to the Loire and the Atlantic; the city had France's largest harbour in the 18th century. Food processing predominated during the
Industrial Age, with sugar refineries (Beghin-Say), biscuit factories (
LU and
BN), canned fish (Saupiquet and Tipiak) and processed vegetables (Bonduelle and Cassegrain); these brands still dominate the French market. The Nantes region is France's largest food producer; the city has recently become a hub of innovation in food security, with laboratories and firms such as
Eurofins Scientific
Eurofins Scientific SE is a French group of laboratories headquartered in Luxembourg, providing testing and support services to the pharmaceutical, food, environmental, agriscience and consumer products industries .
Nantes experienced
deindustrialisation
Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially of heavy industry or manufacturing industry.
There are different interpre ...
after port activity in
Saint-Nazaire
Saint-Nazaire (; ; Gallo: ''Saint-Nazère/Saint-Nazaer'') is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany.
The town has a major harbour on the right bank of the Loire estuary, near the Atlantic Ocean ...
largely ceased, culminating in the 1987 closure of the shipyards. At that time, the city attempted to attract service firms. Nantes capitalised on its culture and proximity to the sea to present itself as creative and modern.
Capgemini (management consulting),
SNCF
The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (; abbreviated as SNCF ; French for "National society of French railroads") is France's national state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the country's national rail traffi ...
(rail) and
Bouygues Telecom
Bouygues Telecom () is a French mobile phone, Internet service provider and IPTV company, part of the Bouygues group. It is the third oldest mobile network operator in France, after Orange and SFR, and before Free Mobile. Its headquarters, desig ...
opened large offices in the city, followed by smaller companies. Since 2000 Nantes has developed a business district, Euronantes, with of office space and 10,000 jobs. Although its stock exchange was merged with that of Paris in 1990, Nantes is the third-largest
financial centre
A financial centre ( BE), financial center ( AE), or financial hub, is a location with a concentration of participants in banking, asset management, insurance or financial markets with venues and supporting services for these activities to ta ...
in France after
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
and
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
.
![Euronantes2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Euronantes2.jpg)
The city has one of the best-performing economies in France, producing annually; returns to the local economy. Nantes has over 25,000 businesses with 167,000 jobs, and its metropolitan area has 42,000 firms and 328,000 jobs. The city is one of France's most dynamic in job creation, with 19,000 jobs created in Nantes Métropole between 2007 and 2014 (outperforming larger cities such as
Marseilles
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
,
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
and
Nice
Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...
). The
communes surrounding Nantes have industrial estates and retail parks, many along the region's ring road. The metropolitan area has ten large shopping centres; the largest, Atlantis in
Saint-Herblain
Saint-Herblain (; br, Sant-Ervlan, ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Loire-Atlantique Departments of France, department, administrative region of Pays de la Loire (Brittany (historical province), Brittany as historical region), France.
I ...
, is a mall with 116 shops and several superstores (including
IKEA
IKEA (; ) is a Dutch multinational conglomerate based in the Netherlands that designs and sells , kitchen appliances, decoration, home accessories, and various other goods and home services. Started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA has been t ...
). The shopping centres threaten independent shops in central Nantes, but it remains the region's largest retail area with about 2,000 shops. Tourism is a growing sector and Nantes, with two million visitors annually, is France's seventh-most-visited city.
In 2014, 74.6 percent of the city's businesses were involved in trade, transport and services; 16.2 percent in administration, education and health; 5.4 percent in construction, and 3.7 percent in industry. Although industry is less significant than it was before the 1970s, Nantes is France's second-largest centre for
aeronautics
Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design, and manufacturing of air flight–capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. The British Royal Aeronautical Society identifies ...
. The European company
Airbus
Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European Multinational corporation, multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace manufacturer, aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft througho ...
produces its fleet's
wingboxes and
radomes in Nantes, employing about 2,000 people. The city's remaining port terminal still handles wood, sugar, fertiliser, metals, sand and cereals, ten percent of the total Nantes–
Saint-Nazaire
Saint-Nazaire (; ; Gallo: ''Saint-Nazère/Saint-Nazaer'') is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany.
The town has a major harbour on the right bank of the Loire estuary, near the Atlantic Ocean ...
harbour traffic (along the Loire estuary). The Atlanpole
technopole, in northern Nantes on its border with
Carquefou
Carquefou (; ) is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique, department in the region Pays de la Loire, in western France.
Population
Economy
The headquarters of the geophysical research company Sercel is located in Carquefou
Sport
In 2008, the local ...
, intends to develop technological and science sectors throughout the
Pays de la Loire
Pays de la Loire (; ; br, Broioù al Liger) is one of the 18 regions of France, in the west of the mainland. It was created in the 1950s to serve as a zone of influence for its capital, Nantes, one of a handful of "balancing metropolises" ().
...
. With a
business incubator
Business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services starting with management training and office space and ending with venture ca ...
, it has 422 companies and 71 research and higher-education facilities and specialises in
biopharmaceuticals,
information technology
Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...
,
renewable energy
Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...
, mechanics, food production and naval engineering. Creative industries in Nantes had over 9,000 architectural, design, fashion, media, visual-arts and digital-technology companies in 2016, a 15 percent job-creation rate between 2007 and 2012 and have a hub under construction on the
Isle of Nantes.
Architecture
![Château des Ducs de Bretagne à Nantes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Ch%C3%A2teau_des_Ducs_de_Bretagne_%C3%A0_Nantes.jpg)
Nantes' cityscape is primarily recent, with more buildings built during the 20th century than in any other era. The city has 127 buildings listed as ''
monuments historiques'', the 19th-ranked French city. Most of the old buildings were made of
tuffeau stone
Tuffeau stone — in French, simply ''tuffeau'' or ''tufeau'' — is a local limestone of the Loire Valley of France. It is characterized as a chalky or sandy, fine-grained limestone, white to yellowish-cream in appearance, and micaceous (conta ...
(a light, easily sculpted
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
typical of the
Loire Valley) and cheaper
schist
Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes o ...
. Because of its sturdiness,
granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
was often used for foundations. Old buildings on the former Feydeau Island and the neighbouring embankments often lean because they were built on damp soil.
Nantes has a few structures dating to
antiquity
Antiquity or Antiquities may refer to:
Historical objects or periods Artifacts
*Antiquities, objects or artifacts surviving from ancient cultures
Eras
Any period before the European Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) but still within the histo ...
and the
early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...
. Remnants of the third-century Roman city wall exist in the old town. The Saint-Étienne chapel, in the Saint-Donatien cemetery outside the city centre, dates to 510 and was originally part of a Roman
necropolis
A necropolis (plural necropolises, necropoles, necropoleis, necropoli) is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek ''nekropolis'', literally meaning "city of the dead".
The term usually im ...
. The Roman city walls were largely replaced during the 13th and 15th centuries. Although many of the walls were destroyed in the 18th century, some segments (such as Porte Saint-Pierre, built in 1478) survived.
![Nantes - Beffroi Ste Croix 01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Nantes_-_Beffroi_Ste_Croix_01.jpg)
Several 15th- and 16th-century
half-timbered
Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...
houses still stand in Le Bouffay, an ancient area corresponding to Nantes' medieval core which is bordered by
Nantes Cathedral and the
Castle of the Dukes of Brittany. The large,
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
cathedral replaced an earlier
Romanesque church. Its construction took 457 years, from 1434 to 1891. The cathedral's tomb of
Francis II, Duke of Brittany and his wife is an example of French
Renaissance sculpture. The Psallette, built next to the cathedral about 1500, is a late-Gothic mansion. The Gothic castle is one of Nantes' chief landmarks. Begun in 1207, many of its current buildings date to the 15th century. Although the castle had a military role, it was also a residence for the ducal
court
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance ...
. Granite towers on the outside hide delicate tuffeau-stone ornaments on its inner facades, designed in
Flamboyant
Flamboyant (from ) is a form of late Gothic architecture that developed in Europe in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, from around 1375 to the mid-16th century. It is characterized by double curves forming flame-like shapes in the bar-tr ...
style with
Italianate influence. The
Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation (), also called the Catholic Reformation () or the Catholic Revival, was the period of Catholic resurgence that was initiated in response to the Protestant Reformation. It began with the Council of Trent (1545–1563) a ...
inspired two
baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
churches: the 1655 Oratory Chapel and Sainte-Croix Church, rebuilt in 1670. A municipal belfry clock (originally on a tower of Bouffay Castle, a prison demolished after the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
) was added to the church in 1860.
![Nantes - Colonne Louis-XVI 04](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Nantes_-_Colonne_Louis-XVI_04.jpg)
After the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
, Nantes developed west of its medieval core along new embankments. Trade-derived wealth permitted the construction of many public monuments during the 18th century, most designed by the
neoclassical architects Jean-Baptiste Ceineray and
Mathurin Crucy
Mathurin Crucy (2 February 1749, Nantes - 7 November 1826, Chantenay, near Nantes) was a French architect and urban planner, who conceived a major Neo-Classical architectural programme for Nantes.
Life
The son of a lumber contractor, Crucy t ...
. They include the Chamber of Accounts of Brittany (now the ''
préfecture'', 1763–1783); the
Graslin Theatre (1788); Place Foch, with its column and statue of
Louis XVI
Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...
(1790), and the
stock exchange
A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for th ...
(1790–1815). Place Royale was completed in 1790, and the large fountain added in 1865. Its statues represent the city of Nantes, the Loire and its main tributaries. The city's 18th-century heritage is also reflected in the ''
hôtels particuliers'' and other private buildings for the wealthy, such as the Cours Cambronne (inspired by
Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
terraces). Although many of the 18th-century buildings have a neoclassical design, they are adorned with sculpted
rococo
Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...
faces and balconies. This architecture has been called "Nantais
baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
".
![Passage Pommeraye 10](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Passage_Pommeraye_10.jpg)
Most of Nantes' churches were rebuilt during the 19th century, a period of population growth and religious revival after the French Revolution. Most were rebuilt in
Gothic Revival style
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
, including the city's two basilicas: Saint-Nicolas and Saint-Donatien. The first, built between 1844 and 1869, was one of France's first Gothic Revival projects. The latter was built between 1881 and 1901, after the
Franco-Prussian War (which triggered another Catholic revival in France). Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Port, near the Loire, is an example of 19th-century neoclassicism. Built in 1852, its dome was inspired by that of
Les Invalides
The Hôtel des Invalides ( en, "house of invalids"), commonly called Les Invalides (), is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as ...
in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
. The
Passage Pommeraye, built in 1840–1843, is a multi-storey shopping arcade typical of the mid-19th century.
Industrial architecture includes several factories converted into leisure and business space, primarily on the
Isle of Nantes. The former
Lefèvre-Utile
Lefèvre Utile, better known worldwide by the initials LU, is a French manufacturer brand of biscuits, emblematic of the city of Nantes. The brand is now part of US confectionery company Mondelēz International since 2012, after splitting of its ...
factory is known for its Tour Lu, a publicity tower built in 1909. Two cranes in the former harbour, dating to the 1950s and 1960s, have also become landmarks. Recent architecture is dominated by postwar concrete reconstructions, modernist buildings and examples of contemporary architecture such as the courts of justice, designed by
Jean Nouvel in 2000.
Culture
Museums
![Reliquaire Anne de Bretagne - Musée de Bretagne 20141102-02](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Reliquaire_Anne_de_Bretagne_-_Mus%C3%A9e_de_Bretagne_20141102-02.JPG)
Nantes has several museums. The
Fine Art Museum is the city's largest. Opened in 1900, it has an extensive collection ranging from
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...
paintings to contemporary sculpture. The museum includes works by
Tintoretto
Tintoretto ( , , ; born Jacopo Robusti; late September or early October 1518Bernari and de Vecchi 1970, p. 83.31 May 1594) was an Italian painter identified with the Venetian school. His contemporaries both admired and criticized the speed with ...
,
Brueghel,
Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...
,
Georges de La Tour,
Ingres
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( , ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassicism, Neoclassical Painting, painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic ...
,
Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...
,
Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
,
Kandinsky and
Anish Kapoor. The Historical Museum of Nantes, in the
castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...
, is dedicated to local history and houses the municipal collections. Items include paintings, sculptures, photographs, maps and furniture displayed to illustrate major points of Nantes history such as the
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
,
industrialisation
Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...
and the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
The
Dobrée Museum, closed for repairs , houses the ''
département
In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: département, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level ("territorial collectivity, territorial collectivities"), between the regions of France, admin ...
'' archaeological and decorative-arts collections. The building is a
Romanesque Revival mansion facing a 15th-century manor. Collections include a golden reliquary made for
Anne of Brittany
Anne of Brittany (; 25/26 January 1477 – 9 January 1514) was reigning Duchess of Brittany from 1488 until her death, and Queen of France from 1491 to 1498 and from 1499 to her death. She is the only woman to have been queen consort of France ...
's heart, medieval statues and timber frames, coins, weapons, jewellery, manuscripts and archaeological finds. The
Natural History Museum of Nantes
The Natural History Museum of Nantes is a French natural history museum
A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals ...
is one of the largest of its kind in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. It has more than 1.6 million zoological specimens and several thousand mineral samples. The
Machines of the Isle of Nantes
The Machines of the Isle of Nantes (french: text=Les Machines de l'île) is an artistic, touristic and cultural project based in Nantes, France. The project is based in the old covered buildings of the former shipyards in Nantes that were at one ti ...
, opened in 2007 in the converted shipyards, has automatons, prototypes inspired by deep-sea creatures and a walking elephant. With 620,000 visitors in 2015, the ''Machines'' were the most-visited non-free site in
Loire-Atlantique
Loire-Atlantique (; br, Liger-Atlantel; before 1957: ''Loire-Inférieure'', br, Liger-Izelañ, link=no) is a department in Pays de la Loire on the west coast of France, named after the river Loire and the Atlantic Ocean. It had a population o ...
. Smaller museums include the
Jules Verne Museum (dedicated to the author, who was born in Nantes) and the Planetarium. The HAB Galerie, located in a former banana warehouse on the Loire, is Nantes' largest art gallery. Owned by the city council, it is used for contemporary-art exhibitions. The council manages four other exhibition spaces, and the city has several private galleries.
Venues
![Scène, Théâtre Graslin, Nantes Jul 15, 2012](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Sc%C3%A8ne%2C_Th%C3%A9%C3%A2tre_Graslin%2C_Nantes_Jul_15%2C_2012.jpg)
''
Le Zénith
Le Zénith () is the name given to a series of indoor arenas in France. The first arena, the "Zénith Paris" is a rejuvenation of the Pavillon de Paris. In French culture, the word "zénith" has become synonymous with "theater". A zénith is a ...
Nantes Métropole'', an indoor arena in
Saint-Herblain
Saint-Herblain (; br, Sant-Ervlan, ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Loire-Atlantique Departments of France, department, administrative region of Pays de la Loire (Brittany (historical province), Brittany as historical region), France.
I ...
, has a capacity of 9,000 and is France's largest concert venue outside Paris. Since its opening in 2006,
Placebo
A placebo ( ) is a substance or treatment which is designed to have no therapeutic value. Common placebos include inert tablets (like sugar pills), inert injections (like Saline (medicine), saline), sham surgery, and other procedures.
In general ...
,
Supertramp,
Snoop Dogg
Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. (born October 20, 1971), known professionally as Snoop Dogg (previously Snoop Doggy Dogg and briefly Snoop Lion), is an American rapper. His fame dates back to 1992 when he featured on Dr. Dre's debut solo single, " ...
and
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
have performed on its stage. Nantes' largest venue is ''La Cité, Nantes Events Center'', a 2,000-seat auditorium. It hosts concerts, congresses and exhibitions, and is the primary venue of the
Pays de la Loire National Orchestra. The
Graslin Theatre, built in 1788, is home to the
Angers-Nantes Opéra
The Angers-Nantes Opéra was created in January 2003 through the fusion of the opera companies of Angers and of Nantes, in order to give fresh impetus to the provision of opera throughout western France.
The company uses a variety of performance ...
. The former
LU biscuit factory, facing the castle, has been converted into
Le Lieu unique. It includes a
Turkish bath
A hammam ( ar, حمّام, translit=ḥammām, tr, hamam) or Turkish bath is a type of steam bath or a place of public bathing associated with the Islamic world. It is a prominent feature in the culture of the Muslim world and was inherited ...
, restaurant and bookshop and hosts art exhibits, drama, music and dance performances. The 879-seat Grand T is the
Loire-Atlantique
Loire-Atlantique (; br, Liger-Atlantel; before 1957: ''Loire-Inférieure'', br, Liger-Izelañ, link=no) is a department in Pays de la Loire on the west coast of France, named after the river Loire and the Atlantic Ocean. It had a population o ...
''département'' theatre, and the Salle Vasse is managed by the city. Other theatres include the ''Théâtre universitaire'' and several private venues. La Fabrique, a cultural entity managed by the city, has three sites which include music studios and concert venues. The largest is Stereolux, specialising in rock concerts, experimental
happening
A happening is a performance, event, or situation art, usually as performance art. The term was first used by Allan Kaprow during the 1950s to describe a range of art-related events.
History
Origins
Allan Kaprow first coined the term "happen ...
s and other contemporary performances. The 140-seat Pannonica specialises in
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
, and the nearby 503-seat Salle Paul-Fort is dedicated to contemporary French singers. Nantes has five cinemas, with others throughout the metropolitan area.
Events and festivals
![Les Nefs et les Machines de lîle de Nantes (7724255850)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Les_Nefs_et_les_Machines_de_l%C3%AEle_de_Nantes_%287724255850%29.jpg)
The
Royal de Luxe street theatre
Street theatre is a form of theatrical performance and presentation in outdoor public spaces without a specific paying audience. These spaces can be anywhere, including shopping centres, car parks, recreational reserves, college or university c ...
company moved to Nantes in 1989, and has produced a number of shows in the city. The company is noted for its large
marionettes (including a giraffe, the Little Giant and the Sultan's Elephant), and has also performed in
Lisbon
Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...
,
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
,
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
and
Santiago
Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...
. Former Royal de Luxe machine designer
François Delarozière
François Delarozière (born 1963) is the art director of La Machine (production company), La Machine, a French company which is a collaboration between artists, designers, fabricators and technicians and which specialises in producing giant perfo ...
created the Machines of the Isle of Nantes and its large walking elephant in 2007. The Machines sponsor theatre, dance, concerts, ice-sculpting shows and performances for children in the spring and fall and at
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...
time.
''
Estuaire'' contemporary-art exhibitions were held along the Loire estuary in 2007, 2009 and 2012. They left several permanent works of art in Nantes and inspired the Voyage à Nantes, a series of contemporary-art exhibitions across the city which has been held every summer since 2012. A route (a green line painted on the pavement) helps visitors make the ''voyage'' between the exhibitions and the city's major landmarks. Some works of art are permanent, and others are used for a summer. Permanent sculptures include
Daniel Buren
Daniel Buren (born 25 March 1938, in Boulogne-Billancourt) is a French conceptual artist, painter, and sculptor. He has won numerous awards including the Golden Lion for best pavilion at the Venice Biennale (1986), the International Award for ...
's ''Anneaux'' (a series of 18 rings along the Loire reminiscent of
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
shackles) and works by
François Morellet
François Morellet (30 April 1926 – 10 May 2016) was a French contemporary abstract painter, sculptor, and light artist. His early work prefigured minimal art and conceptual art and he played a prominent role in the development of geometrical a ...
and
Dan Graham.
''
La Folle Journée
La Folle Journée is a French annual classical music festival held in Nantes. It is the largest classical music festival in France. The festival's name refers to the Pierre Beaumarchais play ''The Marriage of Figaro'', whose alternative title i ...
'' (''The Mad Day'', an alternate title of
Pierre Beaumarchais' play ''
The Marriage of Figaro
''The Marriage of Figaro'' ( it, Le nozze di Figaro, links=no, ), K. 492, is a ''commedia per musica'' (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premie ...
'') is a
classical music
Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...
festival held each winter. The original one-day festival now lasts for five days. Its programme has a main theme (past themes have included exile, nature, Russia and
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leadin ...
), mixing classics with lesser-known and -performed works. The concept has been exported to
Bilbao
)
, motto =
, image_map =
, mapsize = 275 px
, map_caption = Interactive map outlining Bilbao
, pushpin_map = Spain Basque Country#Spain#Europe
, pushpin_map_caption ...
,
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
and
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
, and the festival sold a record 154,000 tickets in 2015. The September Rendez-vous de l'Erdre couples a jazz festival with a pleasure-boating show on the Erdre, exposing the public to a musical genre considered elitist; all concerts are free. Annual attendance is about 150,000. The
Three Continents Festival
The Festival des 3 Continents is an annual film festival held since 1979 in Nantes, France, and is devoted to the cinemas of Asia, and Africa and Latin America. It was founded by Philippe and Alain Jalladeau.[Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...]
,
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
and
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
, with a Mongolfière d'or (Golden Hot-air Balloon) awarded to the best film. Nantes also hosts ''Univerciné'' (festivals dedicated to films in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
,
Italian,
Russian and
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
) and a smaller Spanish film festival. The
Scopitone festival is dedicated to
digital art
Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media.
Since the 1960s, various names ...
, and ''
Utopiales'' is an international
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
festival.
Slavery Memorial
A path along the
Loire river banks, between the
Anne-de-Bretagne Bridge and the
Victor-Schoelcher footbridge begins the Nantes slavery memorial. The path is covered in 2,000 spaced glass inserts, with 1,710 of them commemorating the names of slave ships and their port dates in Nantes. The other 290 inserts name ports in
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, the
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
, and the area around the
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...
. The path and surrounding 1.73-acre park lead to the under-the-docks part of the memorial which opens with a staircase, leading visitors underground closer to the water level of the river, which can be seen through the gaps between the support pillars. Upon entry, visitors are greeted with
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, i ...
and the word "freedom" written in 47 different languages from areas affected by the slave trade. Other etchings of quotes by figures like
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist who served as the President of South Africa, first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1 ...
and
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. appear on the slanted frosted glass wall which lined the memorial wall opposite the pillars which open to the river. These quotes come from across the globe, from all four continents affected by the slave trade, and span over five centuries, from the 17th to the 21st. At the end of the hall, toward the exit, is a room with the timeline of slavery as it became abolished in various countries around the world.
In the arts
![JMW Turner - Nantes from the Ile Feydeau](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/JMW_Turner_-_Nantes_from_the_Ile_Feydeau.jpg)
Nantes has been described as the birthplace of
surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...
, since
André Breton
André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...
(leader of the movement) met
Jacques Vaché Jacques Vaché
Jacques Vaché (7 September 1895 – 6 January 1919) was a friend of André Breton, the founder of surrealism. Vaché was one of the chief inspirations behind the Surrealist movement. As Breton said:
:"''En littérature, je me suis ...
there in 1916. In ''
Nadja
Nadja may refer to:
* Nadja (given name)
* Nadja, pen-name of Louisa Nadia Green (1896—1934), British poet
* ''Nadja'' (novel), 1928 surrealist novel by André Breton
* ''Nadja'' (film), 1994 vampire film by Michael Almereyda
* Nadja (band), ...
'' (1928), André Breton called Nantes "perhaps with Paris the only city in France where I have the impression that something worthwhile may happen to me". Fellow surrealist
Julien Gracq
Julien Gracq (; 27 July 1910 – 22 December 2007; born Louis Poirier in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, in the French ''département'' of Maine-et-Loire) was a French writer. He wrote novels, critiques, a play, and poetry. His literary works were note ...
wrote ''
The Shape of a City
''The Shape of a City'' (french: La Forme d'une ville) is a 1985 book by the French writer Julien Gracq. It is a portrait of Nantes, the city where Gracq grew up, in the form of memories, anecdotes, reflections and dreamlike descriptions. The titl ...
'', published in 1985, about the city. Nantes also inspired
Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle (; 23 January 1783 – 23 March 1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal (, ; ), was a 19th-century French writer. Best known for the novels ''Le Rouge et le Noir'' (''The Red and the Black'', 1830) and ''La Chartreuse de P ...
(in his 1838 ''Mémoires d'un touriste'');
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert ( , , ; 12 December 1821 – 8 May 1880) was a French novelist. Highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flauber ...
(in his 1881 ''Par les champs et par les grèves'', where he describes his journey through
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...
);
Henry James
Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
, in his 1884 ''
A Little Tour in France
''A Little Tour in France'' is a book of travel writing by American writer Henry James. Published under the title ''En Province'' in 1883–1884 as a serial in ''The Atlantic Monthly'', the book recounts a six-week tour James made of many provinci ...
'';
André Pieyre de Mandiargues in ''Le Musée noir'' (1946), and
Paul-Louis Rossi
Paul Louis Rossi (born 1933 Nantes, Brittany) is a French critic and poet.
Life
His grandparents Queffelec spoke Breton and Cornish. His father was Italian, of the Venice area. He was shot by the Germans in 1943 in Tübingen, when Rossi was te ...
in ''Nantes'' (1987).
The city is the hometown of
French New Wave
French New Wave (french: La Nouvelle Vague) is a French art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentation and a spirit of iconocla ...
film director
Jacques Demy
Jacques Demy (; 5 June 1931 – 27 October 1990) was a French director, lyricist, and screenwriter. He appeared at the height of the French New Wave alongside contemporaries like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. Demy's films are celebrat ...
. Two of Demy's films were set and shot in Nantes: ''
Lola'' (1964) and ''
A Room in Town'' (1982). The
Passage Pommeraye appears briefly in ''
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
''The Umbrellas of Cherbourg'' (french: Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) is a 1964 musical romantic drama film written and directed by Jacques Demy, with music and lyrics by Michel Legrand. Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo star as two young l ...
''. Other films set (or filmed) in Nantes include ''
God's Thunder
''God's Thunder'' or ''Le Tonnerre de Dieu'' is a 1965 French-Italian-West German comedy-drama film directed by Denys de La Patellière and starring Jean Gabin and Michèle Mercier.
Plot
Upset by his wife's inability to bear him a child, Brassac ...
'' by
Denys de La Patellière (1965), ''
The Married Couple of the Year Two
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
'' by
Jean-Paul Rappeneau (1971), ''
Day Off'' by
Pascal Thomas (2001) and ''
Black Venus'' by
Abdellatif Kechiche
Abdellatif Kechiche (; ar, عبد اللطيف كشيش, born 7 December 1960) is a Tunisian- French actor, film director and screenwriter. He made his directorial debut in 2000 with '' La Faute à Voltaire'', which he also wrote. Known for his ...
(2010).
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as Fran ...
's ''
Keep Your Right Up
''Keep Your Right Up'' (french: Soigne ta droite / Une place sur la terre) is a 1987 film, written, directed by, and starring French Swiss filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard.
In boxing, ''Soigne ta droite'' is a trainer's call to "keep your right up". The ...
'' was filmed at its airport in 1987.
Nantes appears in a number of songs, the best-known to non-French audiences being 2007's "Nantes" by the American band
Beirut
Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
. French-language songs include "Nantes" by
Barbara
Barbara may refer to:
People
* Barbara (given name)
* Barbara (painter) (1915–2002), pseudonym of Olga Biglieri, Italian futurist painter
* Barbara (singer) (1930–1997), French singer
* Barbara Popović (born 2000), also known mononymously as ...
(1964) and "Nantes" by
Renan Luce (2009). The city is mentioned in about 50 folk songs, making it the most-sung-about city in France after
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
. "Dans les prisons de Nantes" is the most popular, with versions recorded by
Édith Piaf
Édith Piaf (, , ; born Édith Giovanna Gassion, ; December 19, 1915– October 10, 1963) was a French singer, lyricist and actress. Noted as France's national chanteuse, she was one of the country's most widely known international stars.
Pia ...
,
Georges Brassens,
Tri Yann
Tri Yann () is a French band from Nantes who play folk rock music drawing on traditional Breton folk ballads.
The band was founded in 1969 by Jean Chocun, Jean-Paul Corbineau and Jean-Louis Jossic – all of whom remained members – hence th ...
and
Nolwenn Leroy
Nolwenn Le Magueresse (; born 28 September 1982), known by her stage name Nolwenn Leroy (), is a French singer-songwriter, musician and actress.
Originally classically trained (violin and opera singing), she rose to fame after winning the second ...
. Other popular folk songs include "Le pont de Nantes" (recorded by
Guy Béart
Guy Béhart-Hasson (; 16 July 1930 – 16 September 2015), known as Guy Béart, was a French singer and songwriter.
Life and career
Béart was born Guy Béhart-Hasson (originally spelled Béhar-Hassan) in Cairo, Egypt, to a Sephardic Jewish fa ...
in 1967 and
Nana Mouskouri in 1978), "Jean-François de Nantes" (a
sea shanty
A sea shanty, chantey, or chanty () is a genre of traditional Folk music, folk song that was once commonly sung as a work song to accompany rhythmical labor aboard large Merchant vessel, merchant Sailing ship, sailing vessels. The term ''shanty ...
) and the bawdy "De Nantes à Montaigu".
British painter
J. M. W. Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulen ...
visited Nantes in 1826 as part of a journey in the Loire Valley, and later painted a watercolour view of Nantes from Feydeau Island. The painting was bought by the city in 1994, and is on exhibit at the Historical Museum in the castle. An engraving of this work was published in The Keepsake annual for 1831, with an illustrative poem entitled by
Letitia Elizabeth Landon. Turner also made two sketches of the city, which are in collections at
Tate Britain
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...
.
Cuisine
![Affiche LU Bouisset](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Affiche_LU_Bouisset.jpg)
During the 19th century Nantes-born
gastronome
Gastronomy is the study of the relationship between food and culture, the art of preparing and serving rich or delicate and appetizing food, the cooking styles of particular regions, and the science of good eating. One who is well versed in gastr ...
Charles Monselet
Charles Monselet (30 April 1825, Nantes - 19 May 1888, Paris) was a French journalist, novelist, poet and playwright, nicknamed "the king of the gastronomes" by his contemporaries. He specialised in comedic and romantic novels and his total ou ...
praised the "special character" of the local "plebeian" cuisine, which included
buckwheat
Buckwheat (''Fagopyrum esculentum''), or common buckwheat, is a flowering plant in the knotweed family Polygonaceae cultivated for its grain-like seeds and as a cover crop. The name "buckwheat" is used for several other species, such as '' Fago ...
crepes, ''caillebotte'' fermented milk products, fermented milk and ''fouace'' brioche. The Nantes region is renowned in France for market gardens and is a major producer of valerianella locusta, corn salad, leeks, radishes and carrots. Nantes has a wine-growing region, the ''Vignoble nantais'', primarily south of the Loire. It is the largest producer of dry white wines in France, chiefly
Muscadet
Muscadet ( , , ) is a French wine, French white wine. It is made at the western end of the Loire Valley (wine), Loire Valley, near the city of Nantes in the Pays de la Loire region. It is made from the Melon de Bourgogne grape, often referred t ...
and ''Gros Plant'' (usually served with fish, langoustines and oysters).
Local fishing ports such as La Turballe and Le Croisic mainly offer shrimp and sardines, and eels, lampreys, zander and northern pike are caught in the Loire. Local vegetables and fish are widely available in the city's eighteen markets, including the Talensac covered market (Nantes' largest and best known). Although local restaurants tend to serve simple dishes made with fresh local products, exotic trends have influenced many chefs in recent years.
''Beurre blanc'' is Nantes' most-famous local specialty. Made with Muscadet, it was invented around 1900 in Saint-Julien-de-Concelles (on the south bank of the Loire) and has become a popular accompaniment for fish. Other specialties are the LU and BN biscuits, including the Petit-Beurre (produced since 1886), ' (sweets made with flavoured melted sugar) and similar ' sweets with marmalade filling, ''gâteau nantais'' (a rum cake invented in 1820), ' and ''Mâchecoulais'' cheeses and ''fouace'', a star-shaped brioche served with new wine in autumn.
Education
![Nantes Université-château Tertre](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Nantes_Universit%C3%A9-ch%C3%A2teau_Tertre.jpg)
The
University of Nantes
The University of Nantes (french: Université de Nantes) is a public university located in the city of Nantes, France. In addition to the several campuses scattered in the city of Nantes, there are two satellite campuses located in Saint-Nazaire a ...
was first founded in 1460 by
Francis II, Duke of Brittany, but it failed to become a large institution during the Ancien Régime. It disappeared in 1793 with the abolition of French universities. During the 19th century, when many of the former universities reopened, Nantes was neglected and local students had to go to
Rennes
Rennes (; br, Roazhon ; Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France at the confluence of the Ille and the Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department ...
and
Angers. In 1961 the university was finally recreated, but Nantes has not established itself as a large university city. The university had about 30,000 students during the 2013–2014 academic year, and the metropolitan area had a total student population of 53,000. This was lower than in nearby Rennes (64,000), and Nantes is the ninth-largest commune in France in its percentage of students. The university is part of the EPSCP Bretagne-Loire Université, which joins seven universities in western France to improve the region's academic and research potential.
In addition to the university, Nantes has a number of colleges and other institutes of higher education. Audencia Business School, Audencia, a private management school, is ranked as one of the world's best by the ''Financial Times'' and ''The Economist''. The city has five engineering schools: Nantes-Atlantic National College of Veterinary Medicine, Food Science and Engineering, Oniris (veterinary medicine and food safety), École centrale de Nantes (mechanical and civil engineering), École Polytechnique de l'Université de Nantes, Polytech Nantes (digital technology and civil engineering), École des mines de Nantes (now IMT Atlantique) (information technology, nuclear technology, safety and energy) and Institut catholique d'arts et métiers, ICAM (research and logistics). Nantes has three other ''grandes écoles'': the École supérieure du bois (forestry and wood processing), the École de design Nantes Atlantique, School of Design and (computing). Other institutes of higher education include a national merchant navy school, a fine-arts school, a national architectural school and Epitech and Supinfo (computing).
Sport
![LaBeaujoireNantesvsASSE11nov2006](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/LaBeaujoireNantesvsASSE11nov2006.jpg)
Nantes has several large sports facilities. The largest is the Stade de la Beaujoire, built for UEFA Euro 1984. The stadium, which also hosted matches during the 1998 FIFA World Cup and the 2007 Rugby World Cup, has 37,473 seats. The second-largest venue is the Hall XXL, an exhibition hall on the Stade de la Beaujoire grounds. The 10,700-seat stadium was selected as a venue for the 2017 World Men's Handball Championship. Smaller facilities include the 4,700-seat indoor Palais des Sports, a venue for EuroBasket 1983. The nearby Mangin Beaulieu sports complex has 2,500 seats and Pierre Quinon Stadium, an athletics stadium within the University of Nantes, has 790 seats. La Trocardière, an indoor 4,238-seat stadium, is in
Rezé
Rezé (; br, Reudied, Gallo
Gallo may refer to:
*Related to Gaul:
** Gallo-Roman culture
**Gallo language, a regional language of France
**Gallo-Romance, a branch of Romance languages
**Gallo-Italic or Gallo-Italian language, a branch spoken ...
. The Erdre has a marina and a centre for rowing, sailing and canoeing, and the city has six swimming pools.
Six teams in Nantes play at a high national or international level. Best known is FC Nantes, which is a member of Ligue 1 for the 2018–19 season. Since its formation in 1943, the club has won eight Championnat titles and three Coupes de France. FC Nantes has several French professional football records, including the most consecutive seasons in the elite division (44), most wins in a season (26), consecutive wins (32) and consecutive home wins (92 games, nearly five years). In handball, volleyball and basketball, Nantes' men's and women's clubs play in the French first division: HBC Nantes and Nantes Loire Atlantique Handball (handball), and (volleyball) and Hermine de Nantes Atlantique and (basketball). The men's futsal team plays in the Championnat de France de Futsal, and the main athletics team (Nantes Métropole Athlétisme) includes some of France's best athletes.
Transport
![Flickr - IngolfBLN - Nantes - Tramway - Ligne 3 - Orvault (18)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Flickr_-_IngolfBLN_-_Nantes_-_Tramway_-_Ligne_3_-_Orvault_%2818%29.jpg)
The city is linked to Paris by the A11 autoroute, A11 motorway, which passes through
Angers, Le Mans and Chartres. Nantes is on the Way of the Estuaries, a network of motorways connecting northern France and the Spanish border in the south-west while bypassing Paris. The network serves
Rouen
Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine in northern France. It is the prefecture of the Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one of ...
,
Le Havre
Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very cl ...
,
Rennes
Rennes (; br, Roazhon ; Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France at the confluence of the Ille and the Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department ...
,
La Rochelle
La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle''; oc, La Rochèla ) is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. With ...
and
Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...
. South of Nantes, the road corresponds to the A83 autoroute, A83 motorway; north of the city (towards Rennes) it is the RN137, a free highway. These motorways form a ring road around the city, France's second longest after the ring in Bordeaux.
Nantes station, Nantes' central railway station is connected by TGV trains to Paris, Lille,
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
,
Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
and Strasbourg. The LGV Atlantique high-speed railway reaches Paris in two hours, ten minutes (compared with four hours by car). With almost 12 million passengers each year, the Nantes station is the sixth-busiest in France outside Paris. In addition to TGV trains, the city is connected by Intercités trains to Rennes,
Vannes
Vannes (; br, Gwened) is a commune in the Morbihan department in Brittany in north-western France. It was founded over 2,000 years ago.
History Celtic Era
The name ''Vannes'' comes from the Veneti, a seafaring Celtic people who lived ...
, Quimper,
Tours
Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 ...
,
Orléans
Orléans (;["Orleans"](_blank)
(US) and [La Rochelle
La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle''; oc, La Rochèla ) is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. With ...]
and Bordeaux. Local Transport express régional, TER trains serve Pornic, Cholet or Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie.
![Ile-de-Nantes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Ile-de-Nantes.JPG)
Nantes Atlantique Airport in Bouguenais, south-east of the city centre, serves about 80 destinations in Europe (primarily in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and Greece) and connects airports in
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, the Caribbean and Canada. Air traffic has increased from 2.6 million passengers in 2009 to 4.1 million in 2014, while its capacity has been estimated at 3.5 million passengers per year. A new Aéroport du Grand Ouest in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, north of Nantes, was projected from the 1970s, to create a hub serving north-western France. Its construction was however strongly opposed, primarily by green politics, green and anti-capitalism, anti-capitalist activists. The potential construction site was long occupied and the project became a political topic on the national scale. The French government eventually decided to renounce to the project in 2018.
Public transport in Nantes is managed by Semitan, also known as "Tan". One of the world's first horsebus transit systems was developed in the city in 1826. Nantes built its first Mekarski system, compressed-air tram network in 1879, which was electrified in 1911. Like most European tram networks, Nantes' disappeared during the 1950s in the wake of automobiles and buses. However, in 1985 Nantes was the first city in France to reintroduce trams. The city has an extensive public-transport network consisting of trams, buses and river shuttles. The Nantes tramway has three lines and a total of of track. Semitan counted 132.6 million trips in 2015, of which 72.3 million were by tram. Navibus, the Water taxi, river shuttle, has two lines: one on the Erdre and the other on the Loire. The latter has 520,000 passengers annually and succeeds the Roquio service, which operated on the Loire from 1887 to the 1970s.
Nantes has also developed a tram-train system, the Nantes tram-train, which would allow suburban trains to run on tram lines; the system already exists in Mulhouse (in eastern France) and Karlsruhe, Germany. The city has two tram-train lines: Nantes-Clisson (southern) and Nantes-Châteaubriant (northern). Neither is yet connected to the existing tram network, and resemble small suburban trains more than tram-trains. The Bicloo bicycle-sharing system has 880 bicycles at 103 stations.
Nantes Public Transportation statistics
The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Nantes & Saint-Nazaire, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 40 minutes. 7.1% of public transit riders, ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 12 minutes, while 16.8% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 5 km, while 2% travel for over 12 km in a single direction.
[ ]
Material was copied from this source, which is available under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Media
![FolleJournée2009 France3Ouest](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/FolleJourn%C3%A9e2009_France3Ouest.JPG)
The local press is dominated by the Ouest-France group, which owns the area's two major newspapers: ''Ouest-France'' and ''Presse-Océan''. ''Ouest-France'', based in
Rennes
Rennes (; br, Roazhon ; Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France at the confluence of the Ille and the Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department ...
, covers north-western France and is the country's best-selling newspaper. ''Presse-Océan'', based in Nantes, covers
Loire-Atlantique
Loire-Atlantique (; br, Liger-Atlantel; before 1957: ''Loire-Inférieure'', br, Liger-Izelañ, link=no) is a department in Pays de la Loire on the west coast of France, named after the river Loire and the Atlantic Ocean. It had a population o ...
. The Ouest-France group is also a shareholder of the French edition of ''20 minutes (France), 20 Minutes'', one of two free newspapers distributed in the city. The other free paper is ''Direct Matin'', which has no local edition. The news agency ''Médias Côte Ouest'' publishes ''Wik'' and ''Kostar'', two free magazines dedicated to local cultural life. Nantes has a satirical weekly newspaper, ''La Lettre à Lulu'', and several specialised magazines. ''Places publiques'' is dedicated to urbanism in Nantes and
Saint-Nazaire
Saint-Nazaire (; ; Gallo: ''Saint-Nazère/Saint-Nazaer'') is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany.
The town has a major harbour on the right bank of the Loire estuary, near the Atlantic Ocean ...
; ''Brief'' focuses on public communication; ''Le Journal des Entreprises'' targets managers; ''Nouvel Ouest'' is for decision-makers in western France, and ''Idîle'' provides information on the local creative industry. Nantes is home to ''Millénaire Presse''—the largest French publishing house dedicated to professional entertainers—which publishes several magazines, including ''La Scène''. The city publishes a free monthly magazine, ''Nantes Passion'', and five other free magazines for specific areas: ''Couleur locale'' (Les Dervallières), ''Écrit de Bellevue'', ''Malakocktail'' (Malakoff), ''Mosaïques'' (Nantes-Nord) and ''Zest'' for the eastern neighbourhoods.
National radio stations ''FIP (radio station), FIP'' and ''Fun Radio (France), Fun Radio'' have outlets in Nantes. ''Virgin Radio (France), Virgin Radio'' has a local outlet in nearby Basse-Goulaine, and Chérie FM and NRJ have outlets in
Rezé
Rezé (; br, Reudied, Gallo
Gallo may refer to:
*Related to Gaul:
** Gallo-Roman culture
**Gallo language, a regional language of France
**Gallo-Romance, a branch of Romance languages
**Gallo-Italic or Gallo-Italian language, a branch spoken ...
. Nantes is home to ''France Bleu Loire-Océan'', the local station of the Radio France public network, and several private local stations: ''Alternantes'', dedicated to cultural diversity and tolerance; ''Euradionantes'', a local- and European-news station; ''Fidélité'', a Christian station; ''Hit West'' and ''SUN Radio'', two music stations; ''Prun'', dedicated to students, and ''Radio Atlantis'' (focused on the local economy).
Nantes is the headquarters of ''France 3 Pays de la Loire'', one of 24 local stations of the France Télévisions national public broadcaster. ''France 3 Pays de la Loire'' provides local news and programming for the region. The city is also home to ''Télénantes'', a local, private television channel founded in 2004. Primarily a news channel, it is available in Loire-Atlantique and parts of neighbouring
Vendée
Vendée (; br, Vande) is a department in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France, on the Atlantic coast. In 2019, it had a population of 685,442. and Maine-et-Loire.
Notable residents
![Jules Verne by Étienne Carjat](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Jules_Verne_by_%C3%89tienne_Carjat.jpg)
* Arthur I, Duke of Brittany, Arthur I, Duke of Brittany (1187–probably 1203), was born in Nantes
* Duchess
Anne of Brittany
Anne of Brittany (; 25/26 January 1477 – 9 January 1514) was reigning Duchess of Brittany from 1488 until her death, and Queen of France from 1491 to 1498 and from 1499 to her death. She is the only woman to have been queen consort of France ...
(1477–1514), twice List of French consorts, queen consort, was born in Nantes
* Athanase-Charles-Marie Charette de la Contrie, a France, French royalist military commander
* Jacques Cassard (1679-1740), General
* Pierre Cambronne, naval officer
* Aristide Briand, 1926 Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate
* Jules-Albert de Dion, automotive pioneer
* Claude Cahun (1894-1954), surrealist
*
Denys de La Patellière (1921-2013), film director
* Jean-Loup Hubert (born 1949), film director
* Claire Bretécher (1940-2020), cartoonist
* Éric Tabarly (1931-1998), yachtsman
* Loïck Peyron (born 1959), yachtsman
* Jeanne Cherhal (born 1978), singer
* François Bégaudeau, author
* Madeon, disc jockey
* C2C (group), C2C, disc jockey
*
Jacques Demy
Jacques Demy (; 5 June 1931 – 27 October 1990) was a French director, lyricist, and screenwriter. He appeared at the height of the French New Wave alongside contemporaries like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. Demy's films are celebrat ...
, film director
* Joseph Fouché, statesman, was educated there
* Antoinette Van Leer Polk, baroness
* Jules Vallès
* Paul Nizan
*
Julien Gracq
Julien Gracq (; 27 July 1910 – 22 December 2007; born Louis Poirier in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, in the French ''département'' of Maine-et-Loire) was a French writer. He wrote novels, critiques, a play, and poetry. His literary works were note ...
* Olivier Messiaen, composer
* Georges Clemenceau, statesman
* Robert Badinter (b. 1928), lawyer, politician and author
*
André Breton
André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...
(1896–1996), writer and poet, studied medicine in the city
* Jules Verne, (1828–1905),
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
writer
* Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau (1846–1904), statesman, 29th Prime Minister of France)
* Christine and the Queens (born 1988), singer, songwriter and record producer, born and raised in Nantes
* Floresca Guépin (1813–1889), feminist, teacher, school founder
See also
* Timeline of Nantes#Bibliography, Bibliography of Nantes history
* Communes of the Loire-Atlantique department
References
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External links
Official website of the City and Métropole of Nantes
Nantes tourist office
Web archive of Nantes Métropole (the old website) from the Eran Laor Collection, The National Library of Israel
{{Authority control
Nantes,
Populated places established in the 2nd century BC
Populated places established in the 1st century BC
Cities in France
Communes of Loire-Atlantique
Companions of the Liberation
Port cities and towns on the French Atlantic coast
Prefectures in France
Gallia Lugdunensis