During the French Revolution, Brittany was divided into five départements, each made up of three or four arrondissements. The arrondissements are further divided in cantons, which are themselves made up of one or several communes. The communes and the départements have a local council elected by their citizens, but arrondissements and cantons are not run by elected officials. The cantons serve as an electoral district for the election of the département councils and arrondissements are run by a subprefect appointed by the French president. The president also appoints a prefect in each département. Brittany ( / ˈ b r ɪ t ən i/; French: Bretagne [bʁətaɲ] ⓘ; Breton: Breizh, pronounced [bʁɛjs] or [bʁɛx]; [1] Gallo: Bertaèyn or Bertègn [bəʁtaɛɲ]) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period of Roman occupation. It became an independent kingdom and then a duchy before being united with the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province governed as a separate nation under the crown.

The Breton coast is very indented, with many cliffs, rias and capes. The Gulf of Morbihan is a vast natural harbour with some forty islands that is almost a closed sea. In total, around 800 islands lie off the mainland; the largest being Belle Île, in the south. Brittany has over 2,860km (1,780mi) of coastline; it represents a third of the total French coastline. Bretagne Environnement, ed. (2005). "Les oiseaux marins: des falaises, des îlots, des embruns et des plumes". Archived from the original on 20 March 2013. A bilingual approach has also been implemented in some state schools after 1979, and some Catholic schools have done the same after 1990. Besides, Brittany, with the neighbouring Pays de la Loire region, remains a stronghold for Catholic private education with around 1,400 schools. [53] Other Institutes of Learning [ edit ]Having declined from more than one million speakers around 1950 to about 200,000 in the first decade of the 21st century, of whom 61% are more than 60 years old, Breton is classified as "severely endangered" by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. However, the number of children attending bilingual classes has risen 33% between 2006 and 2012 to 14,709. [70] [71] Once used mainly by cultural associations, autonomist and independentist groups, and considered as a separatist emblem by the French authorities, the flag is now widespread in Brittany; seen on most town halls, the flag has been officially recognized on 30 June 1997 by Region Bretagne. It is also used by the General Council At the end of the 19th century, several seaside resorts were created along the coast and villas and hotels were built in historicist, Art Nouveau, and later in the Art Deco styles. These architectures are particularly present in Dinard, La Baule and Bénodet. Architecture from the 20th century can be seen in Saint-Nazaire, Brest and Lorient, three cities destroyed during the Second World War and rebuilt afterwards, and in the works of the Breton nationalist architects like James Bouillé and Olier Mordrel. Giot (P. R), Briard (J.) and Pape (L.) (1995). Protohistoire de la Bretagne. Ouest-France Université. p.370. In response to a plea from the Roman Emperor Anthemius, Riothamus had led twelve thousand men to establish a military presence in Bourges in central Gaul, but was betrayed by Arvandus, the Praetorian Prefect of Gaul, and subsequently ambushed by Euric's army. [c] After a long battle, the Armorican survivors escaped to Avallon in Burgundy, after which they are lost to history. According to Breton king-lists, Riotham survived and reigned as Prince of Domnonia until his death sometime between 500 and 520, though this may have been a different person.

Minor towns around Montfort-sur-Meu in the Ille-et-Vilaine department with an article on Wikivoyage: of Loire-Atlantique, a part of historical Brittany subsequently placed into Region Pays de la Loire. At the same time, the Celtic Revival led to the foundation of the Breton Regionalist Union (URB) and later to independence movements linked to Irish, Welsh, and Scottish and Cornish independence parties in the UK, and to pan-Celticism. However, the audience of these movements remained very low and their ideas did not reach a large public until the 20th century. The Seiz Breur movement, created in 1923, permitted a Breton artistic revival [37] but its ties with Nazism and the collaborationism of the Breton National Party during World War II weakened Breton nationalism in the post-war period.

Stories from France

At the beginning of the medieval era, Brittany was divided among three kingdoms, Domnonea, Cornouaille and Broërec. These realms eventually merged into a single state during the 9th century. [28] [29] The unification of Brittany was carried out by Nominoe, king between 845 and 851 and considered as the Breton Pater Patriae. [30] Among the immigrant Britons, there were some clergymen who helped the evangelisation of the region, which was still pagan, particularly in rural areas. [ citation needed] A French map of the traditional regions of Brittany in Ancien Régime France. The earlier state of Domnonia or Domnonée that united Brittany comprised the counties along the north coast Immigration of the Britons [ edit ] A84 - Non-tolled motorway running from Rennes to Caen, the N12 merges into it between Fougères and Rennes In 2017, the population in Region Brittany was estimated to 3,318,904 and Loire-Atlantique had around 1,394,909 inhabitants, thus historical Brittany's population can be estimated at 4,713,813, the highest in its history. [62] The population in Region Brittany had grown by 0.9% between 1999 and 2000, and the growth rate reached more than 1% in Ille-et-Vilaine and Morbihan. The region around Rennes and the south are the more attractive areas, whereas the population is declining in the centre and in the westernmost parts. While most of the metropolitan areas are growing, the cities themselves tend to stagnate or regress, such as for Brest, Lorient, Saint-Brieuc and Saint-Malo. In 2017, Ille-et-Vilaine had 1,060,199 inhabitants, it was followed by Finistère 909,028 inhabitants, Morbihan 750,863 inhabitants, and Côtes-d'Armor, with 598,814 inhabitants. [63]

Those people had strong economic ties to the Insular Celts, especially for the tin trade [ citation needed]. Several tribes also belonged to an "Armorican confederation" which, according to Julius Caesar, gathered the Curiosolitae, the Redones, the Osismii, the Unelli, the Caletes, the Lemovices and the Ambibarii. [23] The Unelli, Caletes, and Lemovices were respectively located in Cotentin (Lower-Normandy), pays de Caux (Upper-Normandy), and Limousin (Aquitaine); the location of the Ambibarii is unknown. The Caletes are sometimes also considered Belgians, and Lemovices is probably a mistake for Lexovii (Lower-Normandy). [ citation needed] Gallo-Roman era [ edit ] The temple of Mars in Corseulof the poll respondents agreed that Brittany should have more political power, and 31.1% thought that it should stay the same. Only 4.6% favoured independence, and 9.4% were undecided. [68] And this is despite the region’s conquest by the Romans (who named it “Armorica”), followed by the Franks (who tried to wipe out the local language Breton), and every other invading force to the area. Nantes is linked to Paris by the A11 autoroute, and Rennes is both on the A81 autoroute to Paris and the A84 autoroute to Caen. These highways are standard French toll roads. [ This paragraph needs citation(s)] Air [ edit ] The Morlaix railway viaduct is one of the highest in France. Several drafts for French regions had been proposed since the 1920s, and the definitive regions were drawn in 1956. The new Brittany had four départements, and Loire-Atlantique formed the Pays de la Loire region together with parts of Anjou, Maine and Poitou. In 1972, the regions received their present competencies, with an elected regional council. Since then, the region of Brittany has had its own council and administrative bodies. The Veneti, who lived in the present Morbihan département and gave their name to the city of Vannes. Despite confusion by the classical scholar Strabo, they were unrelated to the Adriatic Veneti.