Pau

Industrial city and administrative centre of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département in Aquitaine, southwest France, on the River Gave de Pau near the Spanish border; population (1999) 78,800. It is the centre of the Basque area of France, and the site of fierce guerrilla activity. The town manufactures electrochemical and metallurgical industries, aeronautical equipment and shoes. It has a university.

Features Pau has a mild climate and is a holiday resort. It was the capital of the old province of Béarn and of French Navarre. The castle was the birthplace of Henry IV of France in 1553. Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, who was a marshal under Napoleon and eventually became Charles XIV of Sweden, was born in 1763 in the building which now houses the Bernadotte Museum.