Brest (; ) is a city in the
Finistère département in
Brittany in northwestern
France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the
Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after
Toulon. The city is located on the western edge of continental Europe. With 142,722 inhabitants in a 2007 census, Brest is at the centre of
Western Brittany's largest metropolitan area (with a population of 300,300 in total), ranking third behind only
Nantes and
Rennes in the whole of historic
Brittany, and the
22nd most populous city in France; moreover, Brest provides services to the one million inhabitants of Western Brittany. Although Brest is by far the largest city in Finistère, the
préfecture (regional capital) of the department is the much smaller
Quimper.