Brittany Michelin Regional Map: No. 512 (Michelin Regional Maps)

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The old capital of Brittany, Rennes is still the region's economic and cultural center, as well as a university town. After a fire in 1720, much of the town had to be rebuilt, and more reconstruction was necessary after WWII. Rennes is now a modern city with streets laid out at right angles. a b c d e André Le Coq & Philippe Blanchet (2005). Centre de Recherche sur la DiversitéLinguistique de la Francophonie (ed.). "Pratiques et représentations de la langue et de la culture régionales en Haute Bretagne" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 October 2013. Since the early 1970s, Brittany has experienced a tremendous revival of its folk music. Numerous festivals were created, along with smaller fest-noz (popular feasts). The bagadoù, bands composed of bagpipes, bombards and drums (including snare), are also a modern creation, inspired by the Scottish pipe bands. The Lann-Bihoué bagad, one of the most well-known, belongs to the French Navy. It is the only one that does not take part to the annual bagadoù competitions. Celtic harp is also common, as are vocals and dances. The Kan ha diskan is the most common type of singing. The performers sing calls and responses while dancing. Breton dances usually imply circles, chains or couples and they are different in every region. The oldest dances seem to be the passepied and the gavotte, and the newest ones derive from the quadrille and French Renaissance dances.

As a general rule cyclists are very well respected in the region and many larger towns have cycle-lanes – however traffic is 'cycle-friendly' even in their absence. 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] After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, many Cornish Britons settled in western Armorica to escape the Saxons and the region started to be called Britannia, although this name only replaced Armorica in the sixth century or perhaps by the end of the fifth. [16] Breton political parties do not have wide support and their electoral success is small. However, Bretons have a strong cultural identity. According to a poll made in 2008, 50% of the inhabitants of the region of Brittany considered themselves as much Breton as French, 22.5% felt more Breton than French, and 15.4% more French than Breton. A minority, 1.5%, considered themselves Breton but not French, while 9.3% did not consider themselves to be Breton at all. [68]The Asterix comics, set during the time of Julius Caesar and written in the second half of the twentieth century, are set in Armorica, now Brittany.

Capital cities [ edit ] The Château des ducs de Bretagne in Nantes, permanent residence of the last dukes

Bretagne Environnement, ed. (2005). "Les mammifères". Archived from the original on 25 January 2013. Gallo is spoken on the eastern half of Brittany. It is not itself a Celtic language. Like French, it is also descended from Latin (and is classified in the Langues d'oïl branch), but has some Celtic influences, particularly in its vocabulary, whereas French has influences from both Celtic ( Gaulish) and Frankish (the Germanic language which arrived after Latin in much of the rest of France). Jules Ferry also promoted education policies establishing French language as the language of the Republic, and mandatory education was a mean to eradicate regional languages and dialects. In Brittany, it was forbidden for the pupils to speak Breton or Gallo, and the two were strongly depreciated. Humiliating practices aimed at stamping out the Breton language and culture prevailed in state schools until the late 1960s. [51] Main article: Breton language Bilingual road signs can be seen in traditional Breton-speaking areas.

The main hub of activity on Belle-Île-en-Mer is Le Palais, an interesting town with many restaurants, hotels, art galleries, and artisans' workshops. The domain www.domainesinfo.fr is registered by NetNames". Archived from the original on 7 February 2013 . Retrieved 30 December 2016. The Pays de Saint-Malo, around Saint-Malo, divided between Ille-et-Vilaine, Côtes-d'Armor and Morbihan. The region became part of the Roman Republic in 51 BC. It was included in the province of Gallia Lugdunensis in 13 BC. Gallic towns and villages were redeveloped according to Roman standards, and several cities were created. These cities are Condate ( Rennes), Vorgium ( Carhaix), Darioritum ( Vannes) and Condevincum or Condevicnum ( Nantes). Together with Fanum Martis ( Corseul), they were the capitals of the local civitates. They all had a grid plan and a forum, and sometimes a temple, a basilica, thermae or an aqueduct, like Carhaix. Giot (P. R), Briard (J.) and Pape (L.) (1995). Protohistoire de la Bretagne. Ouest-France Université. p.370.The Breton language has several dialects which have no precise limits but rather form a continuum. Most of them are very similar to each other, with only some phonetic and lexical differences. The three main dialects spoken in the western end of Brittany are: Annales de Bretagne et des pays de l'ouest, (Anjou, Maine, Poitou, Touraine). Université d'Angers. 1976.