The rest of the town extends eastward inland, bounded on the north by the Boscq [fr], a short coastal river, and on the south by alternating cliffs and beaches up to the Saigue stream.

Closing in the north of the Bay of Mont Saint-Michel and its foreshore of a very gentle gradient, it enjoys the highest tides in Europe, up to 14 m (46 ft) of tidal range.

However its positioning on the Bay of the Mont Saint-Michel, at the bottom of the gulf formed by Normandy and Brittany, allows it to be relatively protected from storms and wind (even though it may be exposed to the Suroît [fr]) and enjoy mild temperatures.

[9] All modern toponymists agree on the origin of the Gran- element: Albert Dauzat and Charles Rostaing have classed Granville with the toponyms of the Grandvelle/Grandville type, whose first term is explained just by the Old French grant ("grand").

[13] According to Édouard Le Héricher ("Avranchin monumental and historic") the origin of the toponym is explained by a character named Grant who received the fief of Rollo of Normandy during the conquest of Neustria.

[citation needed] If experts agree all that it is a medieval formation of -ville, the exact meaning to give this suffix varies between "village, hamlet" (Albert Dauzat and Charles Rostaing, François de Beaurepaire, Ernest Nègre) and "domain" (René Lepelley) which should probably be in the sense of "rural area", initially it had the value of the Gallo-Roman VILLA.

Some historians and geographers of the past have attempted to connect Granville to the Grannonum/Grannona, toponym attested in the Notitia Dignitatum on the Saxon Shore from the late Roman Empire: tribunus cohortis primae Armoricanae, Grannona novae in litore Saxonico.

In 1424, the criminal case of Pierre Le Maçon took place in Granville, which was then judged by the chancery of Henry VI of England in February 1425, in Paris.

On 26 October 1439, English officer Sir Thomas de Scales, who served as the Seneschal of Normandy during the Hundred Years' War, bought the Roque of Jean d'Argouges.

Charles VII decided to make Granville a fortified town and signed a charter in 1445 granting arms and exempting the residents of tax.

Therefore, between seventy and eighty ships were armed and Granville gave fifteen admirals to France, of which the best known is Georges René Le Peley de Pléville.

On 8 July 1695, during the Nine Years' War, English Royal Navy warships led by John Benbow bombarded Granville for 8 hours using over 800 shells, destroying 27 of the town's houses.

A force of some 25,000 Vendéen troops (followed by thousands of civilians of all ages), commanded by Henri de la Rochejaquelein, headed for the port of Granville where they expected to be greeted by British warships and an army of Royalist exiles.

The chamber of commerce and industry was created; in 1816, the shores of the Boscq baptised Cours Jonville; in 1823, the breakwater was joined to the land, and in 1827, the first stone of the Roc Lighthouse was laid.

The town really became a seaside resort welcoming Parisians and guests such as Stendhal, Jules Michelet and Victor Hugo, and the parents of Maurice Denis who was born "accidentally" in Granville.

After the war, the regatta resumed in 1919, the carnival in 1920 and a son of the area, Lucien Dior [fr], became Minister of Commerce in the seventh government of Aristide Briand and came to visit the town in 1921.

On 21 September 1941, an article appeared in Le Granvillais signed by the name of "Camille", where the author was alerting readers to the dangers and lack of basis for the next laws on the status of Jews of the Vichy regime.

Despite this mark of resistance, eight Granville Jews were deported to Auschwitz: Léon Bobulesco and his two sons Armand and Rodolphe, Simon Goldenberg, his wife Minka and their children Henri and Ruben, as well as Smil Weesler.

In 1962, the town of Granville absorbed the commune of Saint-Nicolas-près-Granville; the latter, during the revolutionary period of the National Convention (1792–1795), bore the name Champ-Libre [Free Field].

The second half of the 20th century – with the absorption of Saint-Nicolas-près-Granville in 1962, the rural exodus and the construction of many estates on the outskirts – allowed the commune to gain residents again to achieve 13,022 inhabitants in 2006.

The canton returned to Jean-Marc Julienne, assistant Marc Verdier and running mate Daniel Caruhel, belonging to the New Centre but elected as independent.

The commune has on its territory, in association with Avranches, a hospital centre [fr] with a capacity of 742 beds, offering services of general medicine, surgery, gynaecology and obstetrics, cardiology and SMUR.

[57] Several medical or social associations are located on the commune, such as the Union of the Speech Therapists of Manche, the SNSM, the Rotary Club, the Red Cross and the Secours Populaire.

Granville is equipped with numerous sporting facilities allowing the practice of numerous activities, the Cité des sports equipped with two football pitches, two rugby pitches, two basketball courts, an asphalt athletics track, a boulodrome [fr], a skatepark, a BMX track, four judo and gymnastics halls, the Louis-Dior Stadium, equipped with a football field of honour of two other fields and a cinder athletics track, the André Malraux and Pierre de Coubertin indoor gyms, a covered swimming pool, ten clay and GreenSet covered tennis courts, a sea rowing club, the Regional Sailing Centre, a 27-hole golf course built in 1912 on the seafront, the equestrian club and the racecourse of trot and gallop, with flat and obstacles, opened in 1890 and located in the communes of Bréville-sur-Mer and Donville-les-Bains, clay pigeon shooting, the regional parachuting school and two independent schools, the flying club and ultralight flying school.

The weekly La Manche Libre [fr] and the newspaper Ouest-France have premises in the commune and distribute a specific local edition in the Granville area.

Accessible via Granville railway station and situated 25 km (16 mi) from the Route des Estuaires [fr], it is an important economic hub in the south of the department of Manche.

The largest employers in the commune are the centre of thalassotherapy Le Normandy, the Compagnie Générale des Eaux and the biscotte factory of LU-Heudebert [fr] opened in 1973.

For entertainment, the city offers an independent casino, four museums, an aquarium, a rich architectural and environmental heritage, four beaches, and four Wi-Fi access points.

This organisation and the promotion of tourism provides an important attendance to the area, with 69,627 passengers to Chausey in 2006,[79] 54,301 visitors for the Christian-Dior Museum [fr], and 43,500 for the Aquarium du Roc in 2005.

The Chausey islands were proposed for integration into the Natura 2000 network in 1992, but the Council of the community of communes [fr] gave an unfavourable opinion in 2003, blocking the procedure to date.