The walled city on the English Channel coast had a long history of piracy, earning much wealth from local extortion and overseas adventures.

The city changed into a popular tourist centre, with a ferry terminal serving the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey, as well as the Southern English settlements of Portsmouth, Hampshire and Poole, Dorset.

The famous transatlantic single-handed yacht race Route du Rhum, which takes place every four years in November, is between Saint Malo and Pointe-à-Pitre in Guadeloupe.

By the late 4th century AD, the Saint-Servan district was the site of a major Saxon Shore promontory fort that protected the Rance estuary from seaborne raiders from beyond the frontiers.

According to the Notitia Dignitatum, the fort was garrisoned by the militum Martensium under a dux (commander) of the Tractus Armoricanus et Nervicanus section of the litus Saxonicum.

In the 19th century, this "piratical" notoriety was portrayed in Jean Richepin's play Le flibustier and in César Cui's eponymous opera.

The corsairs of Saint-Malo not only forced English ships passing up the Channel to pay tribute but also brought wealth from further afield.

Jacques Cartier lived in, and sailed from, Saint-Malo to the Saint Lawrence River, visiting the villages of Stadacona and Hochelaga that would later become the sites of present-day Quebec City and Montreal respectively.

As the first European to encounter these sites and learning the local word "Kanata" (meaning a group of houses), Cartier is credited as the discoverer of Canada.

In World War II, during fighting in late August and early September 1944, the historic walled city of Saint-Malo was almost totally destroyed by American shelling and bombing.

The fortification complex was garrisoned by more than twelve thousand German troops from different services and units as well as stragglers from other battles in the Cotentin.

German garrisons on the Channel Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney were able to use small craft to bring in water and remove the wounded from the battle.

[24] It also has a railway station, Gare de Saint-Malo, offering direct TGV service to Rennes, Paris and several regional destinations.