Administratively, mainland France (including Corsica) is divided
into 22 regions. These 22 regions are subdivided into 96
metropolitan departments.
Today's Aquitaine is one of those régions and includes the French départements of
Dordogne, Gironde, Landes, Lot-et-Garonne, and Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
Its capital is Bordeaux.
Back in the days, Aquitaine was a bit
larger.
Aquitaine in
History
56 BC - Julius Caesar defeats the
Aquitani and establishes
the province Aquitania, which stretched from the Garonne
River to the Pyrenees. Throughout the years the Romans kept adding
territories to Aquitania until it almost stretched up to the Loire
River in the northeast.
507 AD - Frankish ruler
Clovis I defeats the Visigoths.
MAP OF AQUITAINE BACK
IN THE DAYS
7th century - Gascony separates from Aquitaine.
718 - Eudes, duke of Aquitaine, was threatened by an Arab
invasion. Eudes went for help to Frankish ruler
Charles Martel.
Charles defeated the Arabs in 732.
781 -
Charlemagne
established the kingdom of Aquitaine and decided his son
Louis I
would be its ruler.
838 - Louis' son Pepin I died and Louis added Aquitaine to
the kingdom of Neustria and
gave it to his son Charles II the Bald. The people of Aquitaine weren't happy
because they would have preferred Pepin I's son,
Pepin II, as their
king. But new king Charles was able to shush them.
10th century - A combination of civil war and the invasion of
Normans and Muslims caused Aquitaine to be without a ruler per se.
But there were folks who called themselves dukes of Aquitaine.
11th century - the Dukes of Aquitaine had become powerful. They
annexed some of their neighbor's territories and called their realm
the Duchy of Aquitaine.
1137 -
Eleanor of Aquitaine marries French king
Louis VII and
Aquitaine becomes French. All is well until Eleanor marries
Henry II,
the duke of Normandy in 1152.
1154 - Henry II became king of
England and thus Aquitaine became English. France and England now
officially hated each other's guts. France re-conquered pieces of
Aquitaine over the years but it took until the end of the
Hundred Years' Warto get it all back.
By the way, until the
Hundred Years' War, which was fought 1337 - 1453,
Guyenne
and Aquitaine was the same.
1453 - The French re-conquered Aquitaine, added
Quercy and
Rouergue to its territory, and called it the French province of
Guyenne, or Guienne.
