Basque, member of a people who live in both Spain andFrance inareas bordering theBay of Biscay andencompassing the western foothills of thePyrenees Mountains. In the late 20th century probably about 850,000 trueBasques lived inSpain and 130,000 inFrance; as many as 170,000 Basques may live in emigrantcommunities outside Europe, mostly inSouth America and theUnited States. In Spain their home is thecomunidad autónoma (“autonomous community”) of theBasque Country, which includes theprovincias ofÁlava,Guipúzcoa, and Vizcaya (Biscay); there are also some Basques in Navarra (Navarre). In France, Basques are the chief element of the population in thedépartement ofPyrénées-Atlantiques; the area mainly occupied by Basques is called informally thePays Basque (Basque Country). In physique the Basques are not notably different from the other peoples of western Europe; their language, however, is not Indo-European (seeBasque language).

The landinhabited by the Basques has a mild and damp climate and is largely hilly and wooded. It contains mines of iron ore, which early on favoured the development of industries, particularly shipbuilding. The Basques traditionally farmed small holdings of bottom land and carefully tended slopes of grass, which they cut by hand and fed to stabled cows. Apple orchards and mountainous sheep pastures were also important to their economy. The farmhouses are loosely grouped into villages or are scattered over the lower slopes. The household (including buildings, farm, and family) was an entity of great permanence that was formerly defended by a traditionallaw of inheritance which ensured the descent of the property intact to a single heir or heiress. Traditional Basqueculture therefore revolved around this individual farmstead, called thecaserío, the isolation of which resulted in a strong sense of family kinship among its occupants.

Besides being farmers of small acreages and shipbuilders, the Basques were traditionally seafarers. Basques played a leading part in the colonization of the New World, sailing with the conquistadors and being among the first to exploit the whaling grounds of the Bay of Biscay and the cod fisheries off Newfoundland. The Basques’ ethnic solidarity and their position astride the Franco-Spanish frontier also made smuggling one of their traditional occupations. The Basques have a strongallegiance toRoman Catholicism. They were not converted to Christianity until the 10th century, however, and, although they are now among the most observant of Spanish Catholics, animism survives in their folklore.

Traditional Basque culture has declined with the pronounced urban and industrial development of the region, and emigration to France and the Americas has sharply reduced the population living incaseríos. In most of the larger industrial towns, not only Basque customs but also theBasque language tend to be lost. Basque is still spoken in remote inland mountain areas, but in the late 20th century, virtually all Basques spoke French or Spanish, whether or not they spoke Basque.

The early history of the Basques remains a subject forspeculation, but Roman authors record the presence of the tribe of Vascones in lands corresponding roughly to the province of Navarra. They appear to have resisted the Visigoths, the Franks, the Normans, and, on occasion, the Moors, who occupied the valley of the Ebro. It was the Basques, not the Moors, as theChanson de Roland relates, who cut the rear guard of Charlemagne’s army to pieces at the Battle of Roncesvalles inad 778. The territories of the Basques had been incorporated into the kingdom of Navarre by the 10th century, and by the end of the political turmoil of the Middle Ages, the provinces of Alava, Biscay, and Guipuzcoa had become united with Castile and Aragon. However, in both Spain and France the Basques retained a large measure of localautonomy and privileges in matters of trade, taxation, andmilitary service. These privileges were incorporated in bodies of traditional Basque law known as thefueros, orfors, which determined the rights of the Basques’ popular assemblies and their rules of inheritance. The Basques showed a fierce attachment to theirautonomous status, and in Spain the state’s attempts toencroach upon their local privileges prompted the Basques in the 1830s to support the cause of Don Carlos, theconservative pretender to the Spanish throne, with disastrous results. They similarly supported the unsuccessful Carlist rebellion of the 1870s, and as a punishment the government finally abolished thefueros, though the Basques managed to retain some degree of local autonomy.

The advent of theSpanish Republic in 1931 divided the politicalaspirations of the Basques: Guipúzcoa, Vizcaya, and, to a certain extent, Álava were prepared to work for a status of relative autonomy within the republic, and for this reason they remained loyal to it in spite of its anti-Catholic policy.Navarra, on the other hand, was eager to see the republic overthrown and furnished one of the strong points of the Nationalist rebellion in 1936 and some of its best Carlist troops. The city ofBilbao, which had always been a stronghold of liberalism against the Carlists, became at the same time the centre of republican government and also of Basquenationalism. The fighting lasted until September 1937 and outside Spain is chiefly remembered for the bombing, supposedly by German aircraft, ofGuernica, the traditional assembly place of theprovincia of Vizcaya and a symbol of the Basque nation in Nationalist eyes. After the war, many Basques went into exile asFrancisco Franco’s government abolished the Basques’ special privileges.

After the death of Franco and especially after the establishment of the liberal Spanish monarchy in 1975, the Basques engaged in vigorous demonstrations for local autonomy, which the Spanish government granted in some measure in 1978–79. The increased freedoms and home rule, however, did not satisfy the more militant separatists, such as the hard-line “military” wing of the Euzkadi Ta Azkatasuna (ETA; Basque for “Basque Homeland and Liberty”), a terrorist liberation organization seeking Basqueself-determination and secession from Spain. The Basques thus continued on an unsettled course in their relations with the dominant Spaniards.

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