The Pyrenean foreland, extending between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, is essentially an area of passage, with a landscape pattern of Mediterranean type to the east, while the great forests in the west have something of a Central European character.
The southern part of the Garonne basin, most of which is in Gascony, is similar in many respects to the larger Paris basin, but is bordered on the south by the Pyrenees, rising out of the lower ground almost without transition.
Gascony takes its name from the Basques (Vascones), who were driven out of Spain by the Visigoths at the end of the sixth C. and settled in the Garonne lowlands.
Gascony takes in the present-day départements of Gers, Landes and Hautes- Pyrénées and parts of the Gironde, Lot-et- Garonne, Tarn-et-Garonne, Haute-Garonne and Ariège. Gascony is made up of a number of territories, some of them of considerable importance, which in earlier times had an independent existence. It lies in the western Pyrenean foreland, roughly between the Garonne in the north and east and the Atlantic (Gulf of Gascony or Bay of Biscay) in the west. In the western part of Gascony, adjoining the beautiful Côte d'Argent, are the extensive pine and cork- oak forests of the Landes (lande = "heath"). This was once a boggy area in which the herdsmen went about on stilts, but from the late 18th C. onwards the land was drained and planted with trees. Much of it is now also in agricultural use (maize). Along the flat coast of the Atlantic seaboard are chains of dunes over 100 m/330ft high, the highest in Europe. On the landward side are large coastal lagoons (étangs). To the southwest is the Basque country, extending far into Spanish territory. Farther east, round the town of Auch, is the old county of Armagnac.
Gascony was part of the Roman province of Aquitania, into which the Basques, fleeing from the Visigoths in Spain, penetrated towards the end of the sixth C. During the period of Frankish rule, from 768, Vasconia was a separate duchy, and with the decline of Carolingian power it became increasingly independent. When the native dynasty died out in the middle of the 11th C. Gascony passed to the Aquitanian Duchy of Guyenne. Along with the County of Armagnac, and thanks to the valor of the Armagnacs, Gascony controlled almost the whole of France in the time of Count Bernard VII (1391-1418). Later the Armagnacs were employed by King Charles VII as mercenaries against the Swedes, who inflicted a crushing defeat on them in a battle near Basle in 1444. The remains of the mercenary army made their way into Alsace and southwestern Germany, robbing and plundering, and then gradually dispersed.
Gascony's exposed situation meant that it was frequently ravaged by war, as its many ruined castles bear witness.
As part of the French kingdom from 1453, Gascony was one of its largest provinces, until the French Revolution replaced the old historical territories by the départements into which Gascony is now divided.
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