Briey (; ) is a former commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in northeastern France. On 1 January 2017, it was merged into the new commune Val de Briey. It is located both above and in a steep section of the valley of the river Woigot, five kilometers to the north of the autoroute that connects Strasbourg with Paris, and 22 km northwest of Metz. The population of the town itself has been around 5,000 since the 1960s. Geography Briey forms a part of an extensive grouping of once heavily industrialized towns that also includes Jœuf and Homécourt, along with Hagondange, Amnéville and Rombas in the adjacent department. The town is arranged into four principal quarters, and traversed by the Woigot (itself a tributary of the Orne). North of the river, Briey-Haut (Upper Briey), the area centred on the former medieval citadel, stretches out towards the villages of Mance and Moutier, and overhangs Briey-Bas (Lower Briey), which occupies the banks of the Woigot. The steeply angled "grand-rue" ("Main Street") connects the two areas of the town, which elsewhere are separated by a cliff-face garden. South of the valley is Briey-les-Hauts, another "high town", facing the villages of Lantéfontaine and Valleroy. Beyond Briey-Haut, the fourth quarter is Briey-en-Forêt, a 1960s development dominated by Le Corbusier's "Cité Radieuse", a substantial apartment block, which displays an architectural assertiveness characteristic of its time: the Cité Radieuse has frequently struggled to attract residents, triggering aesthetic and political controversy since first it emerged from the surrounding woodland. History The name "Briey" comes from the Celtic word "Briga", which denotes a fortress. There is a record of the Counts of Bar having held a castle here in 1072. Briey received town privileges in 1263. The turbulent years following the Black Death and the resulting sudden shifts in economic power were marked by an upsurge of violence across the region, and in 1369 Briey was burned out by a force from nearby Metz. The increasing fragility of the Duchy of Burgundy (with was finally absorbed into France following the 1477 Battle of Nancy) created areas of political uncertainty on both sides of the Rhine and ushered in several centuries of warfare which tended, at least until the Battle of Sedan (1871), to involve France on one side and various neighboring countries on the other, whose leaders did not wish France to expand. Briey found itself captured by Charles the