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Founding
Founding of Bordeaux
city and commune in Gironde, New Aquitaine, France
- 5th century – 5th century BCE
- Europe
Founding
city and commune in Gironde, New Aquitaine, France
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Bordeaux ( bor-DOH; French: [bɔʁdo] ⓘ; Gascon Occitan: Bordèu [buɾˈðɛw]; Basque: Bordele) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture of the Gironde department. Its inhabitants are called "Bordelais" (masculine) or "Bordelaises" (feminine). The term "Bordelais" may also refer to the city and its surrounding region.
The city of Bordeaux proper had a population of 267,991 in 2023 within its small municipal territory of 49 km2 (19 sq mi), but together with its suburbs and exurbs the Bordeaux metropolitan area had a population of 1,426,278 (2023), the sixth-most populous in France after Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Lille, and Toulouse.
Bordeaux and 27 suburban municipalities form the Bordeaux Metropolis, an indirectly elected metropolitan authority now in charge of wider metropolitan issues. The Bordeaux Metropolis, with a population of 854,334 at the 2023 census, is the fifth most populated metropolitan council in France after those of Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Lille.
Bordeaux is a world capital of wine: many châteaux and vineyards stand on the hillsides of the Gironde, and the city is home to the world's main wine fair, Vinexpo. Bordeaux is also one of the centers of gastronomy and business tourism for the organization of international congresses. It is a central and strategic hub for the aeronautics, military and space sector, home to major companies such as Dassault Aviation, ArianeGroup, Safran and Thales. The link with aviation dates back to 1910, the year the first airplane flew over the city. A crossroads of knowledge through university research, it is home to one of the only two megajoule lasers in the world, as well as a university population of more than 130,000 students within the Bordeaux Metropolis.
Bordeaux is an international tourist destination for its architectural and cultural heritage with more than 362 historic monuments, making it, after Paris, the city with the most listed or registered monuments in France. The city, known as the "Pearl of Aquitaine", was voted European Destination of the year in a 2015 online poll. The metropolis has also received awards and rankings by international organizations such as the 1957 Europe Prize for its efforts in transmitting the European ideal.
In June 2007, the Port of the Moon in historic Bordeaux was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, for its outstanding architecture and urban ensemble and in recognition of Bordeaux's international importance over the last 2000 years. Bordeaux is also ranked as a Sufficiency city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.
Around 300 BC, the region was the settlement of a Celtic tribe, the Bituriges Vivisci, who named the town Burdigala, probably of Aquitanian origin.
In 107 BC, the Battle of Burdigala was fought by the Romans who were defending the Allobroges, a Gallic tribe allied to Rome, and the Tigurini led by Divico. The Romans were defeated and their commander, the consul Lucius Cassius Longinus, was killed in battle.
The city came under Roman rule around 60 BC, and it became an important commercial centre for tin and lead. During this period the amphitheatre and the monument Les Piliers de Tutelle were built.
In 276 AD, it was sacked by the Vandals. The Vandals attacked again in 409, followed by the Visigoths in 414, and the Franks in 498, and afterwards the city fell into a period of relative obscurity.
In the late 6th century AD the city re-emerged as the seat of a county and an archdiocese within the Merovingian kingdom of the Franks, but royal Frankish power was never strong. The city started to play a regional role as a major urban center on the fringes of the newly founded Frankish Duchy of Vasconia. Around 585 Gallactorius was made Count of Bordeaux and fought the Basques.
In 732, the city was plundered by the troops of Abd er Rahman who stormed the fortifications and overwhelmed the Aquitanian garrison. Duke Eudes mustered a force to engage the Umayyads, eventually engaging them in the Battle of the River Garonne somewhere near the river Dordogne. The battle had a high death toll, and although Eudes was defeated he had enough troops to engage in the Battle of Poitiers and so retain his grip on Aquitaine.
In 737, following his father Eudes's death, the Aquitanian duke Hunald led a rebellion to which Charles responded by launching an expedition that captured Bordeaux. However, it was not retained for long; during the following year the Frankish commander clashed in battle with the Aquitanians but then left to take on hostile Burgundian authorities and magnates. In 745 Aquitaine faced another expedition where Charles's sons Pepin and Carloman challenged Hunald's power and defeated him. Hunald's son Waifer replaced him and confirmed Bordeaux as the capital city (along with Bourges in the north).
During the last stage of the war against Aquitaine (760–768), it was one of Waifer's last important strongholds to fall to the troops of King Pepin the Short. Charlemagne built the fortress of Fronsac (Frontiacus, Franciacus) near Bordeaux on a hill across the border with the Basques (Wascones), where Basque commanders came and pledged their loyalty (769).
In 778, Seguin (or Sihimin) was appointed count of Bordeaux, probably undermining the power of the Duke Lupo, and possibly leading to the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. In 814, Seguin was made Duke of Vasconia, but was deposed in 816 for failing to suppress a Basque rebellion. Under the Carolingians, sometimes the Counts of Bordeaux held the title concomitantly with that of Duke of Vasconia. They were to keep the Basques in check and defend the mouth of the Garonne from the Vikings when they appeared in c. 844. In Autumn 845, the Vikings were raiding Bordeaux and Saintes; count Seguin II marched on them but was captured and executed.
Although the port of Bordeaux was a buzzing trade center, the stability and success of the city were threatened by Viking and Norman incursions and political instability. The restoration of the Ramnulfid Dukes of Aquitaine under William IV and his successors (known as the House of Poitiers) brought continuity of government.
From the 12th to the 15th century, Bordeaux flourished once more following the marriage of Eléonore, Duchess of Aquitaine and the last of the House of Poitiers, to Henry II Plantagenêt, Count of Anjou and the grandson of Henry I of England, who succeeded to the English crown months after their wedding, bringing into being the vast Angevin Empire, which stretched from the Pyrenees to Ireland. After granting a tax-free trade status with England, Henry was adored by the locals as they could be even more profitable in the wine trade, their main source of income, and the city benefited from imports of cloth and wheat. The belfry (Grosse Cloche) and city cathedral St-André were built, the latter in 1227, incorporating the artisan quarter of Saint-Paul. Under the terms of the Treaty of Brétigny it became briefly the capital of an independent state (1362–1372) under Edward, the Black Prince, but after the Battle of Castillon (1453) it was annexed by France.
In 1462, Bordeaux created a local parliament.
Bordeaux adhered to the Fronde, being effectively annexed to the Kingdom of France only in 1653, when the army of Louis XIV entered the city.
The 18th century saw another golden age of Bordeaux. The Port of the Moon supplied the majority of Europe with coffee, cocoa, sugar, cotton and indigo, becoming France's busiest port and the second busiest port in the world after London. Many of the buildings in the centre of Bordeaux (probably as many as 5,000), including those on the quays, are from this period.
Bordeaux was also a major trading centre for slaves. In total, the Bordeaux shipowners deported 150,000 Africans in some 500 expeditions.
At the beginning of the French Revolution (1789), many local revolutionaries were members of the Girondists. This Party represented the provincial bourgeoisie, favorable towards abolishing aristocratic privileges, but opposed to the Revolution's social dimension. The Gironde valley's economic value and significance was satiated by the city's commercial power which was in dire contrast to the emerging widespread poverty affecting its inhabitants. Trade and commerce were the driving factors in the region's economic prosperity, still this resulted in a significant number of locals struggling to survive on a daily basis due to lack of food and resources. This socioeconomic disparity served as fertile ground for discontent, sparking frequent episodes of mass unrest well before the tumultuous events of 1783.
In 1793, the Montagnards led by Robespierre and Marat came to power. Fearing a bourgeois misappropriation of the Revolution, they executed a great number of Girondists. During the purge, the local Montagnard Section renamed the city of Bordeaux "Commune-Franklin" (Franklin-municipality) in homage to Benjamin Franklin.
At the same time, in 1791, a slave revolt broke out at Saint-Domingue (current Haiti), the most profitable of the French colonies. In the lively era of the 18th century, Bordeaux emerged as a center of economic activity, particularly known at first for its successful wine trade. The city's placement along the Gironde River was very strategic, helping to facilitate the transportation of produce to markets both internationally and domestically, which led to an increase in exports and Bordeaux's economic prosperity. There was a significant transformation to the economic landscape of Bordeaux in 1785, which was spurred by the attraction of large profits, traders and merchants in Bordeaux began to turn their attention to the slave trade. This was a very important moment in the city's economic history seeing as it diversified its commercial expansion, at a serious moral cost. This introduced a new layer of difficulty to Bordeaux's economic activities. Even though it brought along significant wealth to certain segments of society, it complicated the socio-economic inconsistencies within the region. The entry into the slave trade brought even more tension within Bordeaux society. The trade exacerbated the divide between an elite with growing wealth and those living in poverty. This economic divide laid out the foundation for the mass unrest that would break out in the French Revolution.
Three years later, the Montagnard Convention abolished slavery. In 1802, Napoleon revoked the manumission law but lost the war against the army of former slaves. In 1804, Haiti became independent. The loss of this "Pearl" of the West Indies generated the collapse of Bordeaux's port economy, which was dependent on the colonial trade and trade in slaves.
Towards the end of the Peninsular War of 1814, the Duke of Wellington sent William Beresford with two divisions and seized Bordeaux, encountering little resistance. Bordeaux was largely anti-Bonapartist and the majority supported the Bourbons. The British troops were treated as liberators. Distinguished historian of the French revolution Suzanne Desan explains that "examining intricate local dynamics" is essential to studying the Revolution by region.
From the Bourbon Restoration, the economy of Bordeaux was rebuilt by traders and shipowners. They engaged to construct the first bridge of Bordeaux, and customs warehouses. The shipping traffic grew through the new African colonies.
Georges-Eugène Haussmann, a longtime prefect of Bordeaux, used Bordeaux's 18th-century large-scale rebuilding as a model when he was asked by Emperor Napoleon III to transform the quasi-medieval Paris into a "modern" capital that would make France proud. Victor Hugo found the town so beautiful he said: "Take Versailles, add Antwerp, and you have Bordeaux".
In 1870, at the beginning of the Franco-Prussian war against Prussia, the French government temporarily relocated to Bordeaux from Paris. That recurred during World War I and again very briefly during World War II, when it became clear that Paris would fall into German hands.
During World War II, Bordeaux fell under German occupation.
In May and June 1940, Bordeaux was the site of the life-saving actions of the Portuguese consul-general, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, who granted thousands of Portuguese visas, which were needed to pass the Spanish border, to refugees fleeing the German occupation.
From 1941 to 1943, the Italian Royal Navy established BETASOM, a submarine base at Bordeaux. Italian submarines participated in the Battle of the Atlantic from that base, which was also a major base for German U-boats as headquarters of 12th U-boat Flotilla. The massive, reinforced concrete U-boat pens have proved impractical to demolish and are now partly used as a cultural center for exhibitions.
In 2007, 40% of the city surface area, located around the Port of the Moon, was listed as World Heritage Site. UNESCO inscribed Bordeaux as "an inhabited historic city, an outstanding urban and architectural ensemble, created in the age of the Enlightenment, whose values continued up to the first half of the 20th century, with more protected buildings than any other French city except Paris".
Bordeaux is located close to the European Atlantic coast, in the southwest of France and in the north of the Aquitaine region. It is around 500 km (310 mi) southwest of Paris. The city is built on a bend of the river Garonne, and is divided into two parts: the right bank to the east and left bank in the west. Historically the left bank is more developed because when flowing outside the bend, the water makes a furrow of the required depth to allow the passing of merchant ships, which used to offload on this side of the river. But, today, the right bank is developing, including new urban projects. In Bordeaux, the Garonne River is accessible to ocean liners through the Gironde estuary. The right bank of the Garonne is a low-lying, often marshy plain.
Bordeaux's climate can be classified as oceanic (Köppen climate classification Cfb), bordering on a humid subtropical climate (Cfa). However, the Trewartha climate classification system classifies the city as solely humid subtropical, due to a recent rise in temperatures related – to some degree or another – to climate change and the city's urban heat island.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Bordeaux”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.