France has more than forty properties on the UNESCO World Heritage list in mainland France: Gothic cathedrals, abbeys, castles, fortified towns, decorated caves, wine landscapes and natural sites. This selection groups the sites and monuments concerned that are in our catalogue, as well as their main components.
Some listings cover several places: Vauban's fortifications (from Briançon to Saint-Martin-de-Ré), the Vézère valley and its decorated caves, the banks of the Seine in Paris and the Loire Valley. We have chosen to present these places one by one, to make planning your visits easier.
For decorated caves and some monuments, advance booking is often recommended, even necessary. Check visiting conditions with the sites before you go.
On a rocky islet in the middle of immense sands subject to the coming and going of powerful tides, on the border between Normandy and Brittany, rise the "Wonder of the West", a Gothic Benedictine abbey dedicated to the archangel Saint Michael, and the village born in the shelter of its walls.
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Partly built from 1145, and rebuilt in twenty-six years after the fire of 1194, Chartres Cathedral is the monument par excellence of French Gothic art.
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A favoured residence of the French monarchy from Louis XIV to Louis XVI, the Palace of Versailles, embellished by several generations of architects, sculptors, ornamentalists and landscape designers, was for more than a century the model in Europe of what a royal residence should be.
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Used by the kings of France since the twelfth century, the hunting lodge of Fontainebleau, in the heart of a great Île-de-France forest, was transformed, enlarged and embellished in the sixteenth century by Francis I, who wanted to make it a "new Rome".
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A high place of pilgrimage since the twelfth century, the basilica of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine at Vézelay stands on top of a high hill overlooking the Cure, on the edge of the Morvan regional park.
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Located in the Dordogne near the village of Montignac-sur-Vézère, in the heart of the Périgord Noir, the Lascaux cave is the masterpiece of prehistoric art.
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The last polychrome decorated cave still open to visitors in France, in the Vézère valley.
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A long engraved gallery in the Vézère valley, with many animal figures of Prehistory.
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A village nestled at the foot of high troglodyte limestone cliffs, nicknamed the "world capital of prehistory" for the exceptional density of its Palaeolithic deposits.
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35,000 years ago, man invented the image. Discover the oldest cave paintings and engravings in the world, through dioramas, slide shows and the new video film, a production by the three discoverers.
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The Carnac alignments are in the commune of Carnac in the Morbihan département in Brittany.
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Amiens Cathedral of Notre-Dame, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is the largest Gothic cathedral in France, and is often considered one of the masterpieces of medieval architecture.
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The exceptional handling of the new architectural techniques of the thirteenth century and the harmonious marriage of sculpted decoration with architectural elements have made Reims's Notre-Dame cathedral one of the masterpieces of Gothic art.
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Admirable for its proportions and the unity of its design, Saint-Étienne cathedral in Bourges, built between the late twelfth and late thirteenth centuries, is one of the great masterpieces of Gothic art.
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Strasbourg's Notre-Dame cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral built in Strasbourg, representative of Gothic architecture.
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Albi cathedral is a masterpiece of southern Gothic. It was begun in 1282 by the bishop and inquisitor Bernard de Castanet, who intended to set a vast preaching space against the persistence of the Cathar heresy.
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Omnipresent, Albi's red brick sets the tone. Delicate pink in the morning, powerful orange under the blazing summer sun or madder red in the evening.
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Fontenay Abbey is a Cistercian abbey founded in 1118 in the French commune of Marmagne, in the Côte-d'Or département and the Burgundy region.
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The abbey ensemble is made up of the church, the conventual building, the abbot's lodging and the gardens.
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Arles offers an interesting example of the adaptation of an ancient city to the civilisation of medieval Europe.
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Located in Provence, the Ancient Theatre of Orange is the best-preserved Roman theatre in the West, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
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The ancient arch of Orange, or commonly the Triumphal Arch of Orange, is a monumental Roman arch of the early first century, which marks the north entrance of Arausio (now Orange, Vaucluse) on the Via Agrippa (now route nationale 7).
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The Palace of the Popes is the symbol of the Church's influence over Christian Europe in the fourteenth century.
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Classified World Heritage by UNESCO. Built in the twelfth century, the Pont d'Avignon is the oldest structure built on the Rhône between Lyon and the sea.
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The Pont du Gard was built shortly before the Christian era to let the Nîmes aqueduct, nearly 50 km long, cross the Gardon.
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A fortified medieval town, with the history of the crusade against the Albigensians, the still-inhabited Cité de Carcassonne lies on the right bank of the Aude.
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Shaded by its century-old plane trees, the hamlet of Le Somail is one of the most picturesque stops on the Canal du Midi, a seventeenth-century engineering masterpiece listed by UNESCO.
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The Royal Saltworks of Arc-et-Senans, near Besançon, is the work of Claude-Nicolas Ledoux.
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Place Stanislas, Place de la Carrière and Place d'Alliance have been inscribed since 1983 as UNESCO World Heritage.
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Saint-Émilion is a commune in south-west France, in the Gironde département and the Aquitaine region.
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The historic centre of this port city in south-west France represents an exceptional urban and architectural ensemble, created in the Age of Enlightenment, whose values lasted until the first half of the twentieth century.
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In Seine-et-Marne, about 80 km south-east of Paris, the fortified medieval town of Provins offers an exceptional architectural heritage.
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UNESCO World Heritage since 1998, the Historic Site of Lyon is one of the largest protected urban ensembles in Europe: Renaissance Old Lyon and its traboules, the Fourvière hill and its basilica, the Presqu'île and the slopes of Croix-Rousse tell two thousand years of unbroken history since the Roman foundation of Lugdunum.
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The basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière overlooks the city of Lyon from the top of the Fourvière hill, on the site of the old Forum of Trajan.
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A great Norman port entirely rebuilt in concrete after the war by Auguste Perret, whose town centre is classified as UNESCO World Heritage.
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The Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris stands in the city of Paris, at the tip of the Île de la Cité.
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The Sainte-Chapelle, also called Sainte-Chapelle du Palais, is a chapel built on the Île de la Cité, in Paris, at the request of Saint Louis to house the Crown of Thorns, a piece of the True Cross, and various other relics of the Passion that he had acquired from 1239.
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The Eiffel Tower is one of the symbolic monuments of Paris. Built in puddled iron, it stands on the Champ-de-Mars and measures 324 metres (with its antenna).
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The palace of the kings of France, marked by history from the Middle Ages to the year 2000.
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Chambord, which measures 156 m by 117 m and has 440 rooms, is the largest of the Loire castles.
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In the heart of the Loire valley, Chenonceau is the most visited private castle in the world. The present castle was built from 1513 to 1521 by Thomas Bohier, receiver of finances under Charles VIII, Louis XII and Francis I.
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The Château d'Amboise rises above the Loire. One of the most visited monuments in France, on a par with the castles of Chambord, Blois, Chenonceau and Azay-le-Rideau.
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The castle was built on a promontory overlooking the Loire and the Arrou. This place has been fortified since very ancient times.
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Overlooking the town, the fortress built by the count of Blois, Theobald I, evokes the time when the histories of France and England were intimately intertwined: the Court of Henry II Plantagenet and Eleanor of Aquitaine settled there in the twelfth century.
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Home of the Dukes of Anjou in the fourteenth century, then residence of the town's governors, a prison, and an arms and munitions depot, the Château de Saumur was bought by the town in 1906 to house the municipal museum.
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Located in Touraine, it belongs to the prestigious line of Loire Valley châteaux.
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The château de Sully-sur-Loire, with its high towers and deep moats, is a superb example of a medieval fortress.
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Founded in 1101 by Robert d'Arbrissel, heir to a prestigious past, the Royal Abbey of Fontevraud became in 1975, through the combined impetus of the Pays de la Loire Region and the Ministry of Culture, a Cultural Meeting Centre entrusted with heritage management.
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The old town fortified by Vauban, also called the "Cité Vauban" or "Gargouille", is a walking place prized by visitors.
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Former capital of the Republic of the Escartons in the fourteenth century then a military town of the Alps, Briançon is on the Route des Grandes Alpes, between Grenoble and Turin.
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The stronghold of Mont-Dauphin, built by Vauban from 1693, is one of the 12 major Vauban sites inscribed in 2008 as UNESCO World Heritage.
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Octagonal fortified town designed by Vauban, inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage.
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Vauban's stronghold in Cerdanya, the highest in France, inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage.
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In the eleventh century, the powerful count of Cerdanya, opposed to the count of Roussillon, found in Villefranche a strategic site, the village being deeply set at the confluence of two rivers.
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A Vauban masterpiece classified as UNESCO World Heritage, the Besançon Citadel is considered one of the most beautiful citadels in France.
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The Blaye citadel is a 38-hectare military complex built between 1685 and 1689 by the military architect François Ferry, director general of the Guyenne fortifications, under the supervision of Sébastien Vauban.
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A citadel of 10 ha whose ramparts extend over 4 km, it brings together about ten buildings totalling more than 10,000 m² of floor space, not counting very many casemates.
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The fortified port of the Île de Ré, with its citadel and Vauban ramparts inscribed by UNESCO.
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A bastioned Vauban tower on the edge of the Brest roadstead, inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage.
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A monumental lighthouse at the mouth of the Gironde, nicknamed the "king of lighthouses", inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage.
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This exceptional mountain landscape, which spreads on both sides of the present national borders of France and Spain, is centred on the Mont Perdu peak, a limestone massif that peaks at 3,352 metres.
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About forty kilometres of volcanic alignment gather a hundred cones and domes inherited from intense eruptive activity. Inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage since 2018, the Chaîne des Puys forms one of the most singular landscapes of the Massif Central.
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Located in southern Corsica, between the villages of Piana and Porto, the splendid jagged rocks in phenomenal colours stand proudly above a sea of magical reflections.
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Scandola is a nature reserve both land and marine, created in 1975 in the commune of Osani. This natural site, unique in the world and UNESCO World Heritage, offers exceptional biodiversity and spectacular volcanic cliffs, to be discovered only by sea.
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World capital of champagne, whose Avenue de Champagne lines up the prestigious headquarters of the great houses above kilometres of cellars carved in chalk.
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Historic capital of Burgundy wines, a fortified town whose ramparts and bastions still ring an old centre renowned for its wine-merchant houses.
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The château du Clos de Vougeot, an essential stop on any stay in Burgundy, awaits you for a fascinating visit that lets you discover a superb twelfth-century cellar designed to hold 2,000 bottles, a magnificent twelfth- and thirteenth-century vat room that houses…
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Former capital of the Dukes of Burgundy, a town of art with half-timbered houses and mansions, renowned for its mustard and gingerbread.
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In the heart of the Mining Basin, the Lewarde Mining History Centre plunges you into the mining culture of Nord-Pas-de-Calais.
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Queen of spa towns, Vichy unfolds along the Allier an exceptional Belle Époque heritage — Parc des Sources, thermal baths and villas — which earned it UNESCO World Heritage inscription in 2021.
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The Maison Carrée is a hexastyle Roman temple built in the early first century in Nîmes, in the Gard.
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