Brittany

By Deane Barker

This is the extreme western region of France. It’s mostly a peninsula that extends into the Atlantic.

The largest city in the region is Rennes, with about 750,000 in its metro area. (Interestingly, the two other large cities are named Vannes and Nantes, which points to some common etymology.)

Brittany is not an official subdivision of France. It has no federal government or legislative representation. It’s simply a region, like “the Midwest” in the United States.

Why I Looked It Up

It came up when I was looking into the Breton Cap. “Breton” is the geographic metonym for Brittany.

Oddly, I had breakfast with someone from France a couple of weeks before writing this, and he had mentioned he was from Brittany.

Postscript

Added on

I asked a friend about the political status of Brittany.

it’s just like a region – it’s part of France since 1532… but there’s a strong identity including a regional language that was spoken (and not French) until WW1

The language called Breton is actually a Celtic language, the only one spoken on the European mainland.

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