Dieppe
First recorded as a small fishing settlement in 1030, Dieppe was an important prize fought over during the Hundred Years' War.
Dieppe housed the most advanced French school of cartography in the 16th century. Two of France's best navigators, Michel le Vasseur and his brother Thomas le Vasseur, lived in Dieppe when they were recruited to join the expedition of René Goulaine de Laudonnière which departed Le Havre for Florida on April 20, 1564. The expedition resulted in the construction of Fort Caroline, the first French colony in the New World. Another expedition two years before where Goulaine de Laudonnière was under command of Jean Ribault, a local Huguenot captain, had resulted in the foundation of Charlesfort, now in South Carolina. Dieppe was the premier port of the kingdom in the 17th century.
On July 23, 1632, 300 colonists heading to New France departed from Dieppe.
At the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Dieppe lost 3,000 of its Huguenot citizens, who fled abroad.
Name of France
In a fourth meaning, "France" refers only to the "Pays de France", one of the many "pays" (Latin: "pagi", singular "pagus") of Île-de-France. French provinces are traditionally made up of several "pays", which are the direct continuation of the "pagi" set up by the Roman administration during Antiquity. The province of Île-de-France is thus made up of several "pays": "Pays de France", Parisis, Hurepoix, French Vexin, and so on. "Pays de France" is the extremely fertile plain located immediately north of Paris which supported one of the most productive agriculture during the Middle Ages and was responsible for the tremendous wealth of the kingdom of France before the Hundred Years' War, making possible the emergence of the Gothic art and architecture which spread all over western Europe. "Pays de France" is also called "Plaine de France" (i.e. "Plain of France"). Its historic main town is Saint-Denis, where the first gothic cathedral in the world was built in the 12th century, and inside which the kings of France are buried. "Pays de France" is now almost entirely built up, being but the northern extension of the Paris suburbs.