PONT-L’ABBÉ, a town of western France in the department of Finistère, 13 m. S.W. of Quimper by rail. Pop. (1906), of the town 4485, of the commune 6432. The town is situated on the right bank of the estuary or river of Pont-l'Abbé, 2 m. from the sea. Its port carries on fishing, imports timber, coal, &c., and exports mine-props and the cereals and vegetables of the neighbourhood. Of the old buildings of the town the chief is a church of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, once attached to a Carmelite convent; an old castle is occupied by the hôtel de ville. The local costumes, trimmed with the bright-coloured embroideries for which the town is noted, are among the most striking in Brittany; the bigouden or head-dress of the women has given its name to the inhabitants. Pont-l'Abbé carries on flour-milling and the extraction of chemicals from seaweed.