In the city of Nantes, on the Loire River in the Upper Brittany region of western France

 “I had come to the conclusion that I must really be French, only no one had ever informed me of this fact. I loved the people, the food, the lay of the land, the civilized atmosphere, and the generous pace of life.” -- Julia Child

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(in western France) The city of Nantes, in the Loire-Atlantique department of the Pays de la Loire region, is situated at the head of the estuary of the Loire River, where it is joined by the Erdre and the Sèvre rivers, 35 miles (56 km) from the sea (and southwest of Paris). It is one of the French towns that has changed the most in the 20th and 21st centuries.

+ Nantes derives its name from the Namnètes, a Gallic tribe who made it their capital. It became a commercial center under the Romans. The Normans occupied it from 834 to 936. After a long struggle in the Middle Ages between the counts of Nantes and Rennes over the sovereignty of Brittany, Francis II, king of France, granted Nantes a communal constitution in 1560. During the Wars of Religion (1562–98), Nantes joined the Catholic League and only opened its gates to Hebry IV, king of France, in 1598, the same year he signed the Edict of Nantes, a charter assuring religious and civil liberties to the Protestants. During the French Revolution, Nantes suffered the ruthless repression of an envoy of the revolutionary Committee of Public Safety named Jean-Baptiste Carrier. In 1793 Carrier replaced executions by the guillotine, which he considered too slow, with mass drownings. (The city was occupied by the Germans during World War II.)

+ Greatly modified by an urban renewal plan that was adopted in 1920, Nantes was further altered and extended after having been partly destroyed in World War II. It has since become quite a dynamic regional center, with a diversified economic structure. Traditional industries such as food processing, engineering, and the manufacture of components for the aeronautical industry remain important, but recent growth has occurred in fields such as biotechnology. Nantes is also a major business center and is the home of many regional headquarters of both industrial and services firms. Nantes has quite a large higher education section. The original university (founded 1460) was abolished during the French Revolution, but a new one was established in 1961. Tourism has been stimulated by redevelopment of part of the former docklands and the building of specialized conference facilities.

+ Spirited and innovative today, this artsy city on the banks of the Loire has a history of reinventing itself. By the 18th century Nantes was France's foremost port, and in the 19th century (following the abolition of slavery) it became an industrial center; the world's first public transport service, the omnibus, began here in 1826. Shipbuilding anchored the city's economy until the late 20th century and when the shipyards relocated westwards to St-Nazaire, Nantes transformed itself into a thriving student and cultural hub.