The Cité de Carcassonne forms the largest group of ancient and medieval

urban fortifications preserved in Europe-two enclosures of rampart

walls demarcating an area of some 7 hectares and a chateau, boasting

a total of 48 towers, 4 barbicans, and 2 bartizans. Set along the River

Aude, at the intersection of two major routes linking the worlds of the

Mediterranean and Aquitaine, the site of Carcassonne was inhabited

from the 7th century BC; the Cité was fortified with ramparts in the

late 3rd and early 4th centuries AD. Owned from the 11th century

by the Trencavel family, governors of Lower Languedoc, it became one

of the fortified towns emblematic of royal power at the end of the

Albigensian Crusade in the 13th century. An outer enclosure was

then erected and the inner rampart walls modernised. The Cité, a key

element in the defence system set up in the face of the Kingdom

of Aragon, stood as an impregnable fortress.

In 1659 the Treaty of the Pyrenees divested the Cité of its strategic role.

Its defence system, in a neglected state, was to be saved from ruin in

the 19th century through the combined efforts of Carcassonne's intelligentsia,

the architect Viollet-le-Duc, and the department of Monuments

Historiques. Today the exceptional character of this architectural ensemble

has earned it a place among UNESCO's listed World Heritage Sites.