The 1790 administrative reform brought aboutthe end of native institutions and laws. All Basque estates representatives from Labourd overtly opposed the new administrative layout since it suppressed their institutions and laws. The representatives of Lower Navarre refused to vote in Paris arguing that they were not part of theKingdom of France; those of Soule voted against. The brothersGarat, representing Labourd, eventually voted yes, thinking that it would give them a say in upcoming political decisions.[6]
In 1800, during the Consulate, the six initial districts were replaced by fivearrondissements: Pau, Orthez, Bayonne, Mauléon and Oloron.
In 1926, as part of a vast reform launched by the government ofRaymond Poincaré, the arrondissements of Orthez and Mauléon were abolished, resulting in the three current arrondissements.
In the 1950s, the Basses-Pyrénées were one of the departments composing the newly createdregion ofAquitaine.
In 1969, the name of the department was changed to "Pyrénées-Atlantiques", because the inhabitants of the department found the name of the Basses-Pyrénées pejorative compared to that of theHautes-Pyrénées.[7][8]
On January 1, 2016, the regions of Aquitaine,Poitou-Charentes andLimousin merged to form the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region.
The southernmost department of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, it is bordered by the departments ofLandes, Hautes-Pyrénées andGers (to the north, east and northeast, respectively), by theBay of Biscay to the west and by the Spanish provinces ofHuesca,Navarre andGipuzkoa to the south.Lac Gentau is located in Pyrénées-Atlantiques, as are theLacs de Carnau.
ThePyrenees mountain range crosses the department from east to west from theCol d'Aubisque to the mouth of theBidasoa atHendaye. The border with Spain follows the Pyrenean chain.
The highest point is at the Pic Palas (commune ofLaruns), in theBalaïtous massif, on the Franco-Spanish border, at 2,974 meters.
The summit ofLa Rhune (900 m) is particularly well-known because of its proximity to the coast (about ten kilometers) and itsancient tourist tradition.
There does not seem to be a particular name to designate the inhabitants of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. The western part is mainly inhabited by theBasques and the eastern part by theBéarnais, who since theRevolution and the creation of the department have shared the same department. However, from 1790 to 1969, the inhabitants were calledBas-Pyrénéens. The Pyrénées-Atlantiques have a fertility rate below the French average with 1.7 children per woman.
Pyrénées-Atlantiques, a border department, has cultivated a number of economic and cultural links with Spain.
Two urban concentrations exist in the east and west of the department: Pau, which has 145,000 inhabitants and 344,000 workers in the local area; and Bayonne-Anglet-Biarritz which has 166,400 inhabitants and 235,000 workers in the local area.
The parts of the department that were part of Guyenne and Gascony, as well as Béarn, have a culture heavily influenced by theBasques, but clearly different identities.
Both the GasconBearnese variant andBasque language are indigenous to the region in their respective districts. Gascon in turn is a dialect ofOccitan, formerly the main language of southern France. It is more closely related toCatalan than it is to French. Basque is alanguage isolate, not related to any known language. Today, French, the sole official language of the French Republic, is the predominant native language and is spoken by virtually all inhabitants.
Pyrénées-Atlantiques is a stronghold of the centristDemocratic Movement (MoDem). Its founder and president,François Bayrou, has served as Mayor of Pau since2014.
^This process occurred in almost all departments whose name included the word "bas" or "inférieur", for example Loire-Inférieure, which became Loire-Atlantique in 1957. Exception: Bas-Rhin.
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