Other theories hold that the name may be a mutation of the Basque word geizpe or kerizpe which means "shelter" or "place of refuge".

[1] In 1600, Englishman Richard Hakluyt used the name Gaspay in his translation of Cosmosgraphie by Jean Alfonse, which became the common spelling in the early 17th century.

[1] Gaspé claims the title of "Cradle of French America", because on June 24, 1534, explorer Jacques Cartier halted in the bay after losing an anchor during a storm and claimed possession of the area by planting a wooden cross with the king's coat of arms and the sentence Vive le Roi de France ("Long live the King of France").

Cartier met there an indigenous tribe that called the territory Honguedo, probably a Mi'kmaq word meaning "meeting place".

With 40 to 50 European ships docking annually, many countries opened consulates in Gaspé, including Italy, the United States, Brazil, Portugal, and Norway.

But the town's ambition to become an international shipping and transportation hub ended with the growing importance of the Montreal and Halifax harbours.

[7] During World War II, 3,000 soldiers were stationed at a naval base built at Sandy Beach to patrol the Gulf of Saint Lawrence against German submarines.

[1] A representation of a small village, with a dozen houses serving as a historical site, was opened in 2015 in front of the Place Jacques-Cartier mall and above the boardwalk along the York River.

[8] In addition to the city, Gaspé's territory includes the communities of Cap-aux-Os, Cap-des-Rosiers, Douglastown, Haldimand, Jersey Cove, L'Anse-à-Fugère, L'Anse-à-Valleau, L'Anse-au-Griffon, Penouille, Petit-Cap, Petite-Rivière-au-Renard, Pointe-Jaune, Rivière-au-Renard, Rivière-Morris, Sandy Beach, Saint-Majorique, Saint-Maurice-de-l'Échouerie, Wakeham, and York Centre.

Summers are warm but relatively short, whereas winters are cold and long, but still far warmer than inland areas of the province given its coastal position.

As typical of Quebec, precipitation and resulting snowfall is high due to the reliable winter temperatures below freezing.

Another big employer is the LM Wind Power Canada Inc. factory that makes the windmill blades to then have them transported elsewhere.

The factory was expanded in 2015 by a joint venture with Senvion to produce long-blade turbine components for the Mesgi'g Ugju's'n wind farm,[18][19] developed by Longueuil, Quebec-based Innergex in Avignon Township.

This 32-foot (9.8 m) high monolithic cross had been cut from a block of gray granite extracted from the stone quarry of Augustus Dumas, in Rivière-à-Pierre in the Portneuf region, on North Shore of the Saint Lawrence River.

A commemorative plaque located at the foot of the Cross in Gaspé was inaugurated on August 23, 2009, in memory of artisans from Rivière-à-Pierre who extracted and cut the block of granite.