arn

Béarn

[bey-ahrn]

This article is about the former French province, for the warship see French aircraft carrier Béarn

Béarn (Gascon: Bearn or Biarn; Basque: Biarno) is a former province of France, located in the Pyrenees mountains and in the plain at their feet, in southwest France. Along with the three Basque provinces of Soule, Lower Navarre, and Labourd, the principality of Bidache, as well as small parts of Gascony, it forms in the southwest the current département of Pyrénées-Atlantiques (64). Pau was the capital of the former viscountcy of Béarn.

Béarn is bordered by Basque provinces Soule and Lower Navarre to the west, by Gascony (Landes and Armagnac) to the north, by Bigorre to the east, and by Spain (Aragon) to the south.

Today the mainstays of the Béarn area are the petroleum business, the aerospace industry through the helicopter manufacturer Turbomeca, tourism and agriculture. Pau was the birthplace of Elf Aquitaine, which has now become a part of Total petroleum company.

In Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers series, the protagonist d'Artagnan was from Béarn (he mentions having attended his father's funeral there in the second book, Twenty Years After). That d'Artagnan is usually referred to as a Gascon is neither surprising nor incorrect, as Béarn is sometimes considered a part of Gascony.

People from Béarn

Alexander Gordon Bearn
Alejo Peyret
Charles XIV John of Sweden King of Sweden and Norway (where he was known as Karl III Johan) from 1818 to 1844
François Bayrou - Candidate in the 2007 French presidential elections
Gaston Planté - French physicist who invented the lead acid battery in 1859
Henry IV of France - Ruled as King of France from 1589 to 1610
Jeanne III of Navarre - Queen regnant of Navarre from 1555 to 1572 and mother of King Henry IV of France
Jean-Jacques Caux
Pierre Bourdieu