The Corsican is simple and sober but unenterprising; dignified and proud, he is possessed of a native courtesy, manifested in his hospitality to strangers, the refusal of which is much resented. He is, however, implacable towards his own countrymen when his enmity is once aroused, and the practice of the blood-feud or _vendetta_ has not died out. Each individual is attached to some powerful family, and the influence of this usage is specially marked in politics, the individual voting with his clan on pain of arousing the vindictiveness of his fellow-members. Another dominant factor in social life in Corsica is the almost universal ambition on the part of the natives towards an official career, a tendency from which commerce and agriculture inevitably suffer.
The manufactures of the island are of small importance. They include the extraction of gallic acid from chestnut-bark, the preparation of preserved citrons and other delicacies, and of macaroni and similar foods and the manufacture of fancy goods and cigars.
The chief ports are Bastia, Ajaccio and Ile Rousse. A railway runs from Bastia to Ajaccio with branches to Calvi and Ghisonaccia, but, in general, lack of means of communication as well as of capital are a barrier to commercial activity. In 1905 imports reached a value of £113,000. The chief were tobacco furniture and wooden goods, wine, cereals, coal, cheese and bran. Exports were valued at £336,000, and included chestnut-extract, charcoal, timber, citrons and other fruits, seeds, casks, skins, chestnuts and tanning bark.
Corsica is divided into five arrondissements (chief towns--Ajaccio, Bastia, Calvi, Corte and Sartène), with 62 cantons and 364 communes. It forms part of the _académie_ (educational circumscription) and archiepiscopal province of Aix (Bouches-du-Rhône) and of the region of the XV. army corps. The principal towns are Ajaccio, the capital and the seat of the bishop of the island and of the prefect; Bastia, the seat of the court of appeal and of the military commander; Calvi, Corte and Bonifacio. Other places of interest are St Florent, near which stand the ruins of the cathedral (12th century) of the vanished town of Nebbio; Murato, which has a church (12th or 13th century) of Pisan architecture, which is exemplified in other Corsican churches; and Cargese, where there is a Greek colony, dating from the 17th century. Near Lucciana are the ruins of a fine Romanesque church called La Canonica. Megalithic monuments are numerous, chief among them being the dolmen of Fontanaccia in the arrondissement of Sartène.