Rezé, Loire-Atlantique Département, Pays de la Loire, France

🇫🇷 Rezé is a commune (municipality) and former bishopric in the Loire-Atlantique department in the Pays de la Loire region of western France. It is a southern suburb of Nantes.

It was also called Ratiate in the Middle Ages and Rezay in the High Middle Ages.

History Rezé dates back to the Roman era, when it was known as Portus Ratiatus (port of Rezé) and Ratiatum Pictonum Portus (picton port of Rezé). Being populated by the Ambilatres tribe - Armorican Gauls - Rezé was an important port on the south shore of the Loire and a place for meetings and trade between the various Celtic tribes of the region (Veneti, Namnetes, Ambilatres, Andecavis and Pictones).

In 510 a Latin Catholic Diocese of Rezé was established on territory split off from the Diocese of Poitiers. It was suppressed 851, its territory being reassigned to the nearby then Diocese of Nantes. No incumbents or other details available.

It has ruins of Gallo-Roman settlement and a priory of Saint Lucien.

In the feudal age, it was the capital of the Pays de Retz within the Duchy of Brittany.

Geography The commune is surrounded by the communes of Nantes, Vertou, Les Sorinières, Pont-Saint-Martin and Bouguenais. It is limited north by the Loire, east by the Sèvre Nantaise and the Ilette, west by the Jaguère and south by the boulevard périphérique of Nantes. Rezé-Pont-Rousseau station has rail connections to Pornic, Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie and Nantes.

Monuments • Unité d'Habitation of Nantes-Rezé, a monumental apartment building designed by Le Corbusier