Brest, a town of 220 000 inhabitants at the tip of Brittany, has the strategic position of a big port sheltered by one of the prettiest bays in the world. It is the main town of Western Brittany and offers a great variety of landscapes, biological resources, industrial and cultural activities.
This capital of the sea and town of culture born from the sea is situated within a 150-km² bay on the big maritime route of the Atlantic Ocean and the English Channel. It has managed to develop its maritime vocation while modernizing it to become an European capital of Sciences and Technologies of the Sea, thanks to the dense and coherent team formed by the University, the Schools of Engineers, the Institutes and Centres of Research and the various companies.
Maritime engineering, living resources, oceanography and oceanology, tourism and water sports, protection of the environment: Brest has gathered the scientific, technological and industrial expertise at the highest level in all areas, combining research and technological acquisitions with traditional know-how.
The exceptional location of the deep and sheltered harbour in the 17th Century led to birth of Brest and the start of its maritime vocation.
This was also the cause of its destruction during the Siege of the town in September 1944. Rebuilt after the war, Brest is today a big university town with the University of Western Brittany, 7 Schools of Engineers, 24 000 students and 1 500 researchers.
The main industrial activities of the region are professional electronics, construction of military ships in its shipyards, mechanical construction and agri-business. But, Brest is also a naval base, a port of national importance, a place dedicated to research, protection of marine eco-systems and fight against incidental pollution, spatial oceanography, fish farming, the production and the industrial exploitation of seaweed and marine biotechnology.
Today Brest is the European capital of Sciences and Technology of the Sea, the Technopole of the Sea with the highest concentration of researchers and engineers working on sea-related projects ( 60 % of the French research) and the European University Institute of the Sea. Brest is also an important town for exhibitions dedicated to the sea.
If Brest is basing its future on the sea and new technologies, it cannot disassociate itself from its inland: Brittany is known as one of the first regions in Europe for greenhouse cultures, intensive pig farming, milk and meat production, early production of vegetables and big co-operatives.
Brest is open onto the world by powerful means of communications: a port, an international airport, motorway access to Paris and Northern Europe and southwards to Nantes and Southern Europe, a daily car-ferry from Roscoff to Britain, and TGV trains.
Brest is also a place of culture with its cultural and conference centre, the “Quartz”, close to the Town Hall in the city centre, which receives 200 000 visitors a year for shows, exhibitions and conferences The Quartz has also created a system of in-house productions to allow young artists to first perform their creation.
The town also has 17 libraries, 1 artothèque, 1 record lending library, 1 centre for composing music, 1 Breton centre of popular art, 1 national school of Fine Art, 7 schools of Music among which a national conservatoire, 11 permanent show halls, 5 museums, 1 8 250-m2 hall at the "Parc des Expositions" and 200 sports clubs.
The latitude of Brest and the vicinity of the Atlantic Ocean explains why the Breton climate is characterised by instability, minor temperature differences (8-10°C in Winter and 18-20°C in Summer) and quite frequent and abundant rainfalls.