Bastia (Basti`a) , a town in NE. Corsica, the most commercial in the island, and once the capital; was founded by the Genoese in 1383, and taken by the French in 1553; exports wine, oil, fruits, &c.
Population (circa 1900) given as 22,000.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Bassorah * Bastian, Adolf