Communes of France

Bessèges

Bessèges, a commune in Gard, Occitanie, France, a 19th-century coal-mining "mushroom town" on the Cèze; also a Barrington Atlas ancient mine site (Pleiades 167678). Peak population 11,404 in 1881; mines closed 1946.

Béziers

Béziers, second city of France's Hérault department, is a hill town above the Orb and Canal du Midi, known for wine, the August Feria, the 1209 massacre, Fonseranes locks, and Saint-Nazaire cathedral.

Biarritz

Biarritz, Basque Biarritz, is an Atlantic resort city in Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France. A former whaling village transformed by Empress Eugénie and Napoleon III's 1854 Villa Eugénie, now the Hôtel du Palais, it is famed for surfing, Belle Époque villas, and coastal erosion.

Blavozy

Blavozy (INSEE 43032) is a commune in Haute-Loire, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France, above the Loire near Le Puy-en-Velay, known for its Magdalenian rock shelter, arkose quarries, one monument historique, and the Michelin civil-engineering tire plant.

Bordeaux

Bordeaux (Burdigala), capital of Nouvelle-Aquitaine on the Garonne, is a French port city and wine capital, UNESCO-listed in 2007 as Port of the Moon for its 18th-century classical urban ensemble; 270,000 inhabitants, 1,810-hectare World Heritage area.

Boulogne-Billancourt

Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine commune west of Paris (INSEE 92012), 119,019 inhabitants in 2023; defined by the Renault factories founded 1898 and closed 1992, and the Île Seguin redevelopment with La Seine Musicale and the Le Large art center.

Boulogne-sur-Mer

Boulogne-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais, France), sub-prefecture on the English Channel; ancient Gesoriacum/Bononia. Leading French fishing port (~33,000 t auctioned yearly), Capécure seafood cluster, Nausicaá aquarium; 40,539 inhabitants in 2023.

Brangues

Brangues, Isère commune (INSEE 38055) on the Rhône, France; village of about 614 people with the Château de Brangues, Paul Claudel's home and tomb, and the Berthet affair that inspired Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir.

Brest, France

Brest, France: commune in Finistère, Brittany, at France's western tip; major naval port with Toulon, seat of the Atlantic maritime prefecture, 142,346 inhabitants (2023), home of the FOST submarine force.

Bulcy

Bulcy (also Bulet) is a small commune in the Nièvre, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, France, INSEE 58042, near La Charité-sur-Loire; 146 inhabitants (2023), known for its oolitic limestone quarry that supplied the nave of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire abbey.

Caen

Caen, prefecture of Calvados in Normandy, France; first recorded as Cadomus in 1025, a city of William the Conqueror, 73% destroyed in 1944, rebuilt, with 109,400 inhabitants (2023) and the Mémorial de Caen museum.

Calais

Calais, French port city in Pas-de-Calais on the Strait of Dover; founded c.1165, English-held 1347–1558, retaken by the Duke of Guise in January 1558; today a leading cross-Channel ferry and freight port.

Callengeville

Callengeville is a commune in Seine-Maritime, Normandy (INSEE 76122), formed in 1973 from Bosc-Geffroy and Les Essarts-Varimpré; about 499 inhabitants, plateau between the Eaulne and Yères valleys.

Campan

Campan, a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées, France, in the upper Adour valley; source of Campan marble (griotte, vert, grand mélange) quarried at Espiadet since Roman times, a Louis XIV royal quarry in 1684, closed in 1992.

Cap d'Agde

Cap d'Agde, a Mission Racine seaside resort in Agde, Hérault, Occitanie, France, built from 1963 around Jean Le Couteur's marina plan; known for its naturist village, 288,000 beds, and 12.6 million overnight stays in 2025.

Carcassonne

Carcassonne (Occitan: Carcassona) is a city in southern France, prefecture of the Aude department, best known for its medieval fortified Cité, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Castelnau-Montratier

Castelnau-Montratier, also Castelnau-des-Vaux, a hilltop bastide commune in the Lot, Occitanie, France (INSEE 46063). Founded by Ratier de Castelnau after destruction by Simon de Montfort; charter of 1291; 1,840 inhabitants (2023); arcaded place, château, domed Saint-Martin church, windmills.

Castres

Castres (Tarn, Occitanie), INSEE 81065, chef-lieu of its arrondissement on the Agout river; 42,505 inhabitants in 2023, seat of the Castres-Mazamet agglomeration, historic abbey town with Jean Jaurès and Goya museums.

Chabestan

Chabestan is a commune in the Hautes-Alpes, France, on the Buëch near Veynes, known for the Pont-de-Chabestan and Champ-Crose tumulus necropolis, spanning Urnfield cremations to a Hallstatt warrior-chief burial.

Chalencon

Chalencon: name of places in south-central France, notably a commune in Ardèche (château, 1822 Protestant temple) and a medieval hamlet of Saint-André-de-Chalencon, Haute-Loire; also an ancient Barrington Atlas site.

Chambéry

Chambéry, prefecture of Savoie in southeastern France, former capital of the House of Savoy (1232-1563) in the cluse between Bauges and Chartreuse; about 60,000 inhabitants, annexed by France in 1860.

Champigneulles

Champigneulles is a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in the Grand Est region of northeastern France, just north of Nancy, home to one of France's largest breweries, founded in 1897.

Champniers

Champniers (Charente, INSEE 16078) is a commune of 5,310 inhabitants (2025) north of Angoulême, in Grand Angoulême; ancient Catemerio/Catumarius, with the Romanesque Église Sainte-Eulalie. Distinct from Champniers in the Vienne (86054).

Chanac

Chanac is a commune in the Lozère department in Occitanie, southern France, known for the ruins of the Château de Chanac and its medieval church.

Chanceaux-sur-Choisille

Chanceaux-sur-Choisille, a commune in Indre-et-Loire (INSEE 37054) about 10 km north of Tours, France. Known for a Gallo-Roman secondary agglomeration at La Prairie de la Bourdillière, an 11th-century Benedictine priory, and the Domaine de la Chute glasshouse restoration.

Chancelade

Chancelade, Dordogne commune near Périgueux: Magdalenian Raymonden site of the 1888 Chancelade skeleton, a medieval Augustinian abbey, and historic white Turonian building-stone quarries.

Chanteau

Chanteau is a commune in Loiret, France, 10 km north of Orléans on the edge of the Orléans forest. Named from Celtic Cantogil, founded around Robert II's 1029 priory, it holds the 1895 mausoleum of the Turco of 1870.

Chartres

Chartres, prefecture of Eure-et-Loir, France, also known as Autricum, capital of the Carnutes; cathedral city with 38,324 inhabitants (2023), UNESCO-listed Notre-Dame cathedral, one hour from Paris.

Cinq-Mars-la-Pile

Cinq-Mars-la-Pile, a commune in Indre-et-Loire (Centre-Val de Loire) on the Loire's right bank, named after its 29.5 m Gallo-Roman funerary pile, classified monument historique in 1840 and reinterpreted by 2005 excavations as marking a Turonne elite's grave.