Bayonne

Bayonne (French pronunciation: ​[bajɔn]; Gascon: Baiona [baˈjunɔ]; Basque: Baiona [baiona]; Spanish: Bayona) is a city and commune and one of the two sub-prefectures of the department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques, in the Aquitaine region of south-western France. It is located at the confluence of the Nive and Adour rivers in the northern part of the cultural region of Basque Country as well as the southern part of Gascony where the Aquitaine basin joins the beginning of the Pre-Pyrenees.

Together with nearby Anglet, Biarritz, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, and several smaller communes, Bayonne forms an urban area with 288,359 inhabitants at the 2012 census, 45,855 of whom lived in the city of Bayonne proper.

The communes of Bayonne, Biarritz, and Anglet have joined into an intercommunal entity called the Agglomération Côte Basque-Adour (formerly Communauté d'agglomération de Bayonne-Anglet-Biarritz (BAB) prior to 2010).

The site on the left bank of the Nive and the Adour was probably occupied before ancient times as a fortified enclosure was attested in the 1st century at the time when the Tarbelli occupied the territory. Archaeological studies have confirmed the presence of a Roman castrum, a stronghold in Novempopulania at the end of the 4th century before the city was populated by the Vascones.