Brest, France

Brest is a port city in the Finistère department, Brittany. Located in a sheltered bay not far from the western tip of a peninsula and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second largest French military port after Toulon. The city is located on the western edge of continental France with 142,346 inhabitants (2023), Brest forms Western Brittany's largest metropolitan area (with a population of 370,000), ranking third behind Nantes and Rennes in Brittany, and the 25th most populous city in France (2019); moreover, Brest provides services to the one million inhabitants of Western Brittany. Although Brest is by far the largest city in Finistère, the préfecture (administrative seat) of the department is in the much smaller town of Quimper. The history of Brest during the Middle Ages is the history of its castle. By the early modern period, however, Brest had become a military harbour, which Richelieu established in 1631. Brest subsequently grew around its arsenal until the second part of the 20th century. Heavily damaged by Allied bombing raids during World War II, the city centre was completely rebuilt after the war.