Nantes

Nantes is a city in the Loire-Atlantique department of France on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 320,732 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabitants. With Saint-Nazaire, 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 department and the Pays de la Loire region, one of 18 regions of France. Nantes belongs historically and culturally to Brittany, a former duchy and province, and its omission from the modern administrative region of Brittany is controversial.
Nantes was identified during classical antiquity as a port on the Loire. It was the seat of a bishopric at the end of the Roman era before it was captured by the Bretons in 851 with the help of Lambert II of Nantes. Although Nantes was the primary residence of the 15th-century dukes of Brittany, Rennes became the provincial capital after the 1532 union of Brittany and France.
During the 17th century, after the establishment of the French colonial empire, Nantes gradually became the largest port in France and was responsible for nearly half of the 18th-century French Atlantic slave trade. The French Revolution resulted in an economic decline, but Nantes developed robust industries after 1850. Deindustrialization 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 ranked Nantes as a Gamma world city. It is the third-highest-ranking city in France, after Paris and Lyon. The Gamma category includes cities such as Algiers, Orlando, Porto, Turin and Leipzig. Nantes has been praised for its quality of life, and it received the European Green Capital Award in 2013. The European Commission noted the city's efforts to reduce air pollution and CO₂ emissions, its high-quality and well-managed public transport system and its biodiversity, with of green space and several protected Natura 2000 areas.

Etymology

Nantes is named after a tribe of Gaul, the 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 with the Erdre. The origin of the name Namnetes is uncertain, but is thought to come from the Gaulish root *nant- 'river, stream' or from Amnites, another tribal name possibly meaning 'men of the river'.
Its first recorded name was by the Greek writer Ptolemy, who referred to the settlement as Κονδηούινκον and Κονδιούινκον —which might be read as Κονδηούικον —in his treatise, Geography. The name was Latinised during the Gallo-Roman period as Condevincum, Condevicnum, Condivicnum and Condivincum. Although its origins are unclear, Condevincum seems to be related to the Gaulish word condate 'confluence'.
The Namnete root of the city's name was introduced at the end of the Roman period, when it became known as Portus Namnetum "port of the Namnetes" and civitas Namnetum 'city of the Namnetes'. Like other cities in the region, its name was replaced during the fourth century with a Gaulish one: Lutetia became Paris, and Darioritum became Vannes. Nantes's name continued to evolve, becoming Nanetiæ and Namnetis during the fifth century and Nantes after the sixth, via syncope.

Modern pronunciation and nicknames

Nantes is pronounced, and the city's inhabitants are known as Nantais. In Gallo, 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, Nantes is known as Naoned or an Naoned, the latter of which is less common and reflects the more-frequent use of articles in Breton toponyms than in French ones.
Nantes's 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 la Cité des Ducs "the City of the List of rulers of Brittany|Dukes " for its castle and former role as a ducal residence.

History

Prehistory and antiquity

The first inhabitants of what is now Nantes settled during the Bronze Age, later than in the surrounding regions. Its first inhabitants were apparently attracted by small iron and tin deposits in the region's subsoil. The area exported tin, mined in Abbaretz and Piriac, as far as Ireland. 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 and Polybius.
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 in the first century AD. During the Gaulish period it was the capital of the 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 until the end of the second century AD. Ratiatum, founded under Augustus, developed more quickly than Nantes and was a major port in the region. Nantes began to grow when Ratiatum collapsed after the Germanic invasions.
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 or an amphitheatre, the city had sewers, public baths and a temple dedicated to Mars Mullo. After an attack by German tribes in 275, Nantes's 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 was introduced during the third century. The first local martyrs were executed in 288–290, and a cathedral was built during the fourth century.

Middle Ages

Like much of the region, Nantes was part of the Roman Empire during the early Middle Ages. Although many parts of Brittany experienced significant Breton immigration, Nantes remained allied with the empire until its collapse in the fifth century. Around 490, the Franks under Clovis I captured the city from the Visigoths after a sixty-day siege; it was used as a stronghold against the Bretons.
Under Charlemagne in the eighth century the town was the capital of the Breton March, a buffer zone protecting the Carolingian Empire from Breton invasion. The first governor of the Breton March was Roland, whose feats were mythologized in the body of literature known as the Matter of France.
After Charlemagne's death in 814, Breton armies invaded the March and fought the Franks. Nominoe 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 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 took hold in France during the 10th and 11th centuries, and Nantes was the seat of a county 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 to the counts of Anjou. During the 14th century, Brittany experienced a war of succession which ended with the accession of the House of Montfort to the ducal throne. The Montforts, seeking emancipation from the suzerainty of the French kings, reinforced Breton institutions. They chose Nantes, the largest town in Brittany, as their main residence and made it the home of their council, their treasury and their chancery. Port traffic, insignificant during the Middle Ages, became the city's main activity. Nantes began to trade with foreign countries, exporting salt from Bourgneuf, wine, fabrics and hemp.
The 15th century is considered Nantes's 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, and the University of Nantes, the first in Brittany, was founded in 1460.

Modern era

The marriage of Anne of Brittany to Charles VIII of France in 1491 began the unification of the duchy of Brittany with the French crown which was ratified by Francis I of France 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 received most legal and administrative institutions, and Nantes kept a financial role with its Chamber of Accounts.
During the French Wars of Religion from 1562 to 1598, the city was a Catholic League stronghold. The Duke of Mercœur, governor of Brittany, strongly opposed the succession of the Protestant Henry IV of France 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 ; the Edict of Nantes was signed in the town, concluding the French wars of religion. Nonetheless, the town remained fervently Catholic, and the local Protestant community did not number more than 1,000.
Coastal navigation and the export of locally produced goods 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 in the 1640s, which became very profitable after protectionist reforms implemented by Jean-Baptiste Colbert prevented the import of sugar from Spanish colonies.
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 in 1706. The port was part of the triangular trade: ships went to West Africa 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 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.