Brittany

The one Celtic region on the continent, settled from Britain by people fleeing the Anglo-Saxons. Breton is a Brittonic language, closer to Welsh and Cornish than to anything in France, carried across the Channel by migrants from the fifth century - which is why the peninsula is called Brittany and its people once called their neighbours the French. The duchy was independent or semi-independent through the middle ages, resisting both France and England, until the marriage of Duchess Anne to two successive French kings brought it into the kingdom, formalised in 1532 with guarantees of Breton privileges that the revolution abolished. The Third Republic's schools then treated Breton as an obstacle: children were punished for speaking it, and a policy summarised in the phrase forbidding spitting and speaking Breton drove the language out of a generation. Speaker numbers fell from over a million in 1950 to a fraction of that. Diwan immersion schools since 1977 have produced new speakers. The region is Catholic, maritime and heavily oriented to fishing and now agriculture. Its festou-noz dance gatherings are recognised by Unesco. Carnac's megaliths predate Stonehenge. The region has about 3.3 million people, or over four million counting Loire-Atlantique, which was administratively detached in 1941 and is still disputed. Rennes and Nantes are the largest cities. Around two hundred thousand people speak Breton. Gallo, a langue d'oil variety, is spoken in the east. The Breton flag's black and white stripes date only from 1923. Brittany produces a large share of France's pork, poultry and vegetables.

• Existed: 850 CE – present
• Type: Entity