Brive-la-Gaillarde grew on the plain of the Corrèze, at a crossroads of routes between the Limousin, the Périgord and the Quercy. Its nickname, la Gaillarde, comes from the strength of its defences: in 1341, the four consuls began a wall that increased the enclosed area of the town fivefold, and the city held out against the English during the Hundred Years' War.
The ramparts were pulled down in the eighteenth century at the instigation of Joseph Dubois, who had the banks of the river drained, replaced the thirteen-arch bridge with the pont Cardinal and laid out, in place of the wall, the ring of boulevards that still borders the centre. That history explains the shape of the town: a tight old core around the collegiate church of Saint-Martin and the Labenche museum, then a first ring of suburbs, then the districts of the twentieth century. Brive is also the town of the market in the Georges-Brassens hall, sung by Georges Brassens in « Hécatombe », of the Foire du Livre book fair and of the CA Brive rugby club, at the Amédée-Domenech stadium.
The geography of prices follows that concentric pattern. The centre and its first ring, between the boulevards, the Corrèze and the station, form the top of the market. The suburbs of the east, the south and the north sit in the middle. The large estates of the west, around Tujac and La Gaubre, remain the most affordable. The rail links towards Paris, Limoges, Bordeaux and Toulouse, and the crossing of the A20 and the A89, support demand.
