Layers of Heritage
Forty-five thousand French historic monuments, from their oldest known stone to today: a map that builds itself before your eyes, century after century.
Since 1840, the French state has protected buildings deemed worth preserving: castles, churches, bridges, wash houses, railway stations… The Ministry of Culture’s Mérimée database now lists nearly forty-five thousand protected buildings in mainland France, each dated to its oldest known construction phase.
This map reveals them in the chronological order of their construction rather than their protection: from scattered antique remains to the density of nineteenth-century building, passing through the great Romanesque, Gothic, and Classical waves. A progressively darker shade marks the depth of time: each point added is one more layer in the construction of the country.
Show the data as a table
| Period | Classified | Registered | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paleolithic | 138 | 45 | 183 |
| Mesolithic | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| Neolithic | 1,020 | 311 | 1,331 |
| Chalcolithic | 17 | 4 | 21 |
| Bronze Age | 34 | 29 | 63 |
| Iron Age | 86 | 91 | 177 |
| 6th century BC | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 5th century BC | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 4th century BC | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| 3rd century BC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2nd century BC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 1st century BC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Gallo-Roman period | 332 | 212 | 544 |
| 1st century | 71 | 13 | 84 |
| 2nd century | 15 | 3 | 18 |
| 3rd century | 16 | 2 | 18 |
| 4th century | 13 | 5 | 18 |
| 5th century | 7 | 5 | 12 |
| 6th century | 5 | 7 | 12 |
| 7th century | 6 | 2 | 8 |
| Middle Ages | 259 | 551 | 810 |
| 8th century | 7 | 7 | 14 |
| 9th century | 24 | 16 | 40 |
| 10th century | 60 | 71 | 131 |
| 11th century | 646 | 629 | 1,275 |
| 12th century | 2,306 | 2,675 | 4,981 |
| 13th century | 965 | 1,499 | 2,464 |
| 14th century | 615 | 1,128 | 1,743 |
| 15th century | 1,183 | 2,628 | 3,811 |
| 16th century | 1,460 | 3,610 | 5,070 |
| 17th century | 1,147 | 3,425 | 4,572 |
| Early modern period | 1 | 7 | 8 |
| 18th century | 969 | 3,735 | 4,704 |
| 19th century | 501 | 2,843 | 3,344 |
| 20th century | 325 | 1,867 | 2,192 |
| Total | 12,238 | 25,423 | 37,661 |
Data sources
- Immeubles protégés au titre des monuments historiques (base Mérimée)
- Cours d'eau (tracé)
- Réseau routier (autoroutes et voies rapides)
Download the prepared data: monuments.json (7.9 MB)
Files as the visualization uses them. Reuse remains subject to the licenses of the sources above.
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