It is the seat of the Communauté d'agglomération du Pays Basque which roughly encompasses the western half of Pyrénées-Atlantiques, including the coastal city of Biarritz.

[citation needed] 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.

The district of Saint-Esprit developed initially from settlement by Sephardic Jewish refugees fleeing the Spanish expulsions dictated by the Alhambra Decree.

Its heritage is expressed in its architecture, the diversity of collections in museums, its gastronomic specialties, and traditional events such as the noted Fêtes de Bayonne.

"It has perhaps been lost from sight that many urban place names in France, from north to south, came from the element Bay- or Bayon- such as: Bayons, Bayonville, Bayonvillers and pose the unusual problem of whether they are Basque or Gascon" adds Pierre Hourmat.

Sources: Origins: In the absence of accurate objective data there is some credence to the probable existence of a fishing village on the site in a period prior to ancient times.

[citation needed] The Romans left the city in the 4th century and the Basques, who had always been present, dominated the former Novempopulania province between the Garonne, the Ocean, and the Pyrénées.

[EG 5] There was also maritime activity in providing crews for whaling, commercial marine or, and it was often so at a time when it was easy to turn any merchant ship into a warship, the English Royal Navy.

[EG 6][Note 12] Jean de Dunois – a former companion at arms of Joan of Arc—captured the city on 20 August 1451 and annexed it to the Crown "without making too many victims", but at the cost of a war indemnity of 40,000 gold Écus payable in a year,[PH 1]—thanks to the opportunism of the bishop who claimed to have seen "a large white cross surmounted by a crown which turns into a fleur-de-lis in the sky" to dissuade Bayonne from fighting against the royal troops.

The golden age of the city ended in the 15th century with the loss of trade with England and the silting of the port of Bayonne created by the movement of the course of the Adour to the north.

[37] In 1523, Marshal Odet of Foix, Viscount of Lautrec resisted the Spaniards under Philibert of Chalon in the service of Charles V and lifted the siege of Bayonne.

[40] In the 16th century, the king's engineers, under the direction of Louis de Foix, were dispatched to rearrange the course of the Adour by creating an estuary to maintain the river bed.

[PiH 5] Trade with Spain, the Netherlands, the Antilles, the cod fishery off the shores of Newfoundland, and construction sites maintained a high level of activity in the port.

[PiH 6] In 1808, at the Château of Marracq, the act of abdication of the Spanish king Charles IV in favour of Napoleon was signed under the "friendly pressure" of the Emperor.

[PiH 7] The Siege of Bayonne marked the end of the period with the surrender of the Napoleonic troops of Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult who were defeated by the coalition led by Wellington on 5 May 1814.

[citation needed] Azure, a tower embattled and ramparted of Argent, wavy proper in base, cantoned to dexter with a letter N crowned of Or, between two pines Vert each fructed of seven Or and set with fruit pal, debruised by two lions langued confronting.

[citation needed] On the morning of 23 December 1933, sub-prefect Anthelme received Gustave Tissier, the director of the Crédit Municipal de Bayonne.

He had issued thousands of false bonds in the name of Crédit Municipal [...]"[Note 19] This was the beginning of the Stavisky Affair which, together with other scandals and political crises, led to the Paris riots of 6 February 1934.

[Note 23][52] On the 23rd, there was an informal and immediate installation of a "special municipal delegation" by the young deputy prefect Guy Lamassoure representing the Provisional Government of the French Republic which had been established in Algiers since 27 June.

Bayonne occupies a territory characterized by a flat relief to the west and to the north towards the Landes forest, tending to slightly raise towards the south and east.

[Note 25] Downstream from this point, the river has shaped a large, wide bed in the sand dunes, creating a significant bottleneck at the confluence.

[PH 8] Before this capture, the Nive had deposited pebbles from the Mindel glaciation of medium to large sizes; this slowed erosion of the hills causing the bottleneck at Bayonne.

This explains the invasion of the lower valleys with fine sand, peat, and mud with a thickness of more than 40 metres (130 feet) below the current bed of the Adour and the Nive in Bayonne.

[FL 4] According to François Lafitte Houssat, "[...] a municipal ordinance of 1327 provided for the imprisonment of any quarrellsome woman of bad character in an iron cage dropped into the waters of the Nive River from the bridge.

Bayonne is connected to many cities in the western half of the department such as Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Saint-Palais by the Pyrenees-Atlantiques long-distance coach network of Transport 64 managed by the General Council.

It is the ancient road used by pilgrims descending to Bayonne then either along the coast on the Way of Soulac or because they landed there from England, for example, to join the French Way as soon as possible in Pamplona.

[Insee 9] The tourist infrastructure in the surrounding urban area of Bayonne complements the local supply with around 5800 rooms spread over nearly 200 hotels and 86 campsites offering over 14,000 beds.

Grand Bayonne is the commercial and civic hub, with small pedestrianised streets packed with shops, plus the cathedral and the Hôtel de Ville.

The museum is one of the best galleries in south west France and has paintings by Edgar Degas, El Greco, Sandro Botticelli, and Francisco Goya, among others.

The soldiers of Wellington's army who died besieging the citadelle in 1813 are buried in the nearby English Cemetery, visited by Queen Victoria and other British dignitaries when staying in Biarritz.