Louisbourg

Town in northeastern Nova Scotia, Canada, on the east coast of Cape Breton Island, on the Atlantic Ocean, 29 km/18 mi southeast of Sydney; population (1998 est) 1,265. Major industries are fishing, fish processing, and tourism. The town is adjacent to the site of 18th-century Louisbourg, established in 1713 as the capital of the French colony of Ile Royale (Cape Breton Island).

The original Louisbourg was fortified in the first half of the 18th century to control the entrance to the Gulf of St Lawrence. Captured by New Englanders under Sir William Pepperell in 1745, it was returned to France in 1748, but in 1758 was seized by the British, who demolished the fortress in 1760. From the 1960s, 60 buildings (about one fifth of the total area) were reconstructed on their original sites to their original specifications, partly to provide employment for redundant coal miners in Cape Breton Island. The fortress, staffed in the tourist season by actors playing French inhabitants from 1744, is a major tourist attraction. The Louisbourg Institute studies the archaelogy and history of the site. The Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Park is Canada's largest (6,700 ha/16,550 acres).