BAYONNE

Bayonne (in Basque and Gascon: Baiona1) is a municipality in southwestern France and one of the two sub-prefectures of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. The city is located at the confluence of the Adour and Nive rivers, not far from the Atlantic Ocean, on the northern border of the Basque Country and southern Gascony, where the Aquitaine basin meets the foothills of the Pyrenees. It borders on the north with the Landes department, and the French-Spanish territorial limit is about thirty kilometers to the south.

The site on the left bank of the Nive and Adour rivers was probably occupied before Antiquity and a fortified enclosure is attested in the first century, at the time when the Tarbelli occupied the territory. Archaeological studies have confirmed the presence of a Roman castrum, a stronghold of Novempopulania, at the end of the fourth century, before the city became a Vascony.

In 1023, Bayonne is the capital of Labourd, and extends in the xi century towards and beyond the Nive, while the first bridge on the Adour is built. The city, following the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Henry Plantagenet, Count of Anjou and Maine, Duke of Normandy and future King of England, took on military and especially commercial importance, thanks to maritime exchanges with England. It was separated from the viscounty of Labourd in 1177 by Richard the Lionheart. The latter confirmed or established a certain number of rights or freedoms for the cathedral as well as for the inhabitants2. In 1451, the city was taken by the Crown of France, at the end of the Hundred Years’ War. The loss of trade with the English and the silting up of the river, followed by its displacement to the north, weakened the city; the Saint-Esprit district nevertheless developed, thanks to the arrival of a Jewish population fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. Bayonne owes its reputation in the field of chocolate to this community. The course of the Adour was modified in 1578 under the direction of Louis de Foix, and the river found its previous mouth, giving back to the port of Bayonne the activity it had lost for more than a hundred years. In the 17th century, the city was fortified by Vauban. In 1814, Bayonne and its surroundings were the scene of fighting between Napoleonic troops and the Spanish-English-Portuguese coalition led by the Duke of Wellington.

In 1951, the Lacq gas deposit was discovered and the fatal sulfur extracted and the associated oil were shipped from the port of Bayonne. During the second half of the 20th century, many large housing estates were built, forming new neighborhoods on the outskirts, and the city expanded to form a conurbation with Anglet and Biarritz; this agglomeration became the heart of a vast Basque-Landes urban area.