Corsica

Corsica was settled in prehistory, and at Filitosa, in the south, standing stones carved with faces and weapons date from the Bronze Age. Greeks from Phocaea founded Alalia, now Aléria, on the east coast around 565 BC, and the island later came under Rome. In the Middle Ages Pisa ruled it and built Romanesque churches, before Genoa took over at the end of the 13th century and held it for almost five hundred years, fortifying Bastia, Calvi, Bonifacio and Ajaccio and ringing the coast with watchtowers against pirates.

Resistance to Genoa grew in the 18th century. In 1755 Pasquale Paoli established an independent Corsican state with a constitution, a capital at Corte and a university. Genoa ceded the island to France in 1768, and Paoli's forces were defeated at Ponte Novu in 1769 — the year Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Ajaccio. The British briefly ruled an Anglo-Corsican kingdom from 1794 to 1796.

In the 19th and 20th centuries many Corsicans emigrated or served in the French army and colonial administration. Corsica was the first part of metropolitan France liberated in 1943. After 1975, a nationalist movement emerged and the FLNC carried out bombings for decades; in 1998 the prefect Claude Érignac was assassinated in Ajaccio. Nationalist parties have run the regional government since 2015, and talks with Paris on autonomy have continued in recent years.

Corsicans have a strong island identity. The Corsican language, closely related to Tuscan Italian, is spoken by a significant minority, taught in schools and seen on bilingual road signs, and the flag features a Moor's head on a white background. Family ties, the village of origin and a sense of honour remain important, and many people living in towns or on the mainland return to their family village for summer and for burials.

Music is central to the culture. Paghjella, traditional polyphonic singing by male voices, is listed by UNESCO as intangible heritage, and modern groups have brought it to wider audiences. The island is largely Catholic, and religious brotherhoods organise Holy Week processions, including the Catenacciu in Sartène on Good Friday, in which a hooded penitent carries a heavy cross and chains through the town.

Traditional crafts include knife-making and woodwork, and hunting, especially for wild boar, is a popular autumn activity. Supporters of SC Bastia and AC Ajaccio share a strong football rivalry.

About 350,000 people live in Corsica. Ajaccio, with around 73,000 people, and Bastia, with about 50,000, are the only large towns; Porto-Vecchio, Borgo, Corte, Calvi and Bonifacio are much smaller. Many interior villages have lost most of their residents and come alive only in summer.

The economy relies heavily on tourism, the public sector and construction, with farming — sheep and goats, pigs, chestnuts, citrus fruit and wine — in the background. Tourist numbers are several times the local population in summer, which puts pressure on roads, water and housing. Holiday homes have pushed up prices for local people, a central political issue.

The pace of life follows the seasons. Summer is busy and crowded along the coast, while in winter the island is quiet and many businesses close. The University of Corsica in Corte, founded in 1981, keeps alive the connection with Paoli's original university.

Corsican cooking comes from mountain farms and the maquis. The island's charcuterie, made from pigs that roam semi-wild in the chestnut and oak woods, includes lonzu, cured pork fillet; coppa, cured neck; prisuttu, a long-aged ham; and figatellu, a liver sausage eaten in winter. Brocciu is a fresh cheese made from the whey of sheep's or goat's milk and used in omelettes, in cannelloni and in fiadone, a cheesecake flavoured with citron zest.

Chestnut flour was once the island's staple and still appears in pulenda, a dense chestnut polenta, in cakes and fritters, and in Pietra, a chestnut beer. Other dishes include civet de sanglier, a wild boar stew, and fish soup on the coast. Canistrelli are crisp biscuits often flavoured with white wine or aniseed, and Corsican clementines and honey carry protected labels.

Wines are made from local grapes such as Nielluccio, Sciaccarellu and Vermentinu, and Patrimonio, Ajaccio and the Muscat du Cap Corse are well-known appellations. Myrtle liqueur and a quinine-based aperitif called Cap Corse are also popular.

In the south, Ajaccio offers the Maison Bonaparte, the Palais Fesch museum with its Italian paintings, and the Sanguinaires islands at the mouth of the gulf. Bonifacio's old town stands on white cliffs above the sea, with the King of Aragon's Staircase cut into the rock and boat trips to the Lavezzi islands. Porto-Vecchio has beaches such as Palombaggia, and inland lie the Aiguilles de Bavella, the statue-menhirs of Filitosa and the old town of Sartène.

On the west coast, the Calanques de Piana are red granite cliffs above the Gulf of Porto, which forms a UNESCO World Heritage Site with the Scandola nature reserve, reachable only by sea, and the Gulf of Girolata. Further north, Calvi has its citadel and sandy bay, and the hill villages of the Balagne are nearby.

In the north-east, Bastia has its old port and citadel, and Cap Corse is a narrow peninsula of villages and Genoese towers, with Saint-Florent and the Désert des Agriates to the west. In the interior, Corte has its citadel and the Restonica valley leads to mountain lakes, while Monte Cinto, the island's highest peak, rises in the north. The GR20 crosses the mountains for about 180 kilometres, from Calenzana near Calvi to Conca in the south-east, and takes most walkers around two weeks.