BREST, west France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Finistere, 155m. W.N.W. of Rennes by rail. Pop. (1930 60,276. It lies north of a magnificent land-locked bay, and occupies the slopes of two hills divided by the river Penfeld, the left bank being regarded as Brest proper, the right as Re couvrance. There are also extensive suburbs to the east. Some hill-sides are so steep that the ascent is made by flights of steps. This is characteristic of many old fishing settlements. Brest was ceded about 1240 by a count of Leon to John I., duke of Brittany. From 1342 to 1397 it was in English hands and the saying was current that "He is not duke of Brittany who is not lord of Brest." By the marriage of Francis I. with Claude, daughter of Anne of Brittany, Brest with Brittany passed to the crown. Richelieu, in 1631, constructed a harbour with wooden wharves, which soon became a station of the French navy. Colbert changed the wooden wharves for masonry and otherwise improved the port, and Vauban's fortifications followed in 168o-88. Fortifications and naval importance have continued to develop. Running round the shore to the south of the town is the Cours d'Ajot promenade. The castle with its donjon and seven towers (12th to 16th cen tury) commands the entrance to the river.
The roadstead consists of a deep indentation formed by coastal subsidence, about 14m. long and averaging 4m. wide, barred by the peninsula of Quelern, leaving the Goulet passage, from 1 to 2m. broad. The outline of the bay is broken by numerous sub merged tributary valleys. The naval port, in great part excavated in the rock, extends along both banks of the Penfeld. There are also large naval barracks. The commercial port, separated from the town by the Cours d'Ajot, comprises a tidal port with docks and an outer harbour. The chief imports are wheat, wine, coal, timber, petrol, iron and steel, fertilizers and paper-pulp. Exports: fruit, potatoes, pyrites and pit-props. Besides its sardine and mackerel fisheries, the town has flour-mills, breweries and engi neering works, and manufactures of candles, chemicals (from sea weed), boots, shoes and linen. Brest communicates by submarine cable with America and French West Africa.
During the World War Brest became the port of disembarkation for the American Army fighting in France. Troops and material were landed here, and new docks were rapidly constructed and many older ones deepened. Since 1918 Brest has become more and more important as a calling port for trans-Atlantic liners and a leading naval centre. Brest is the seat of a sub-prefect and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of com merce, a board of trade-arbitrators, two naval tribunals and a tribunal of maritime commerce.
(Polish Brzes`d-Litewski), capital of the Polish province of Polesie in 52° 5' N. and 23° 39' E., at the junc tion of the river Muchowiec with the Bug, and of railways from Warsaw, Kiev, Moscow and East Prussia. Pop. (1867), (1921) 29,10o, of whom more than one half were Jews. Brest has suffered many calamities in its history. Ravaged by the Mongols in 1241, by the Teutonic knights in the 14th and the Crimean Tatars in the 15th centuries, its population has decreased by over 24,000 during the wars of 1914-18 and 192o. In 1596 the famous council met there which established the United Catholic Church. From 1795 to 1921 it belonged to Russia. The Royal canal (5om. long), constructed in the 18th century, forms a link in the water ways that connect the Vistula and the Dnieper.