Albi

People lived at Albi in the Bronze Age, and after the Roman conquest of Gaul it became the Civitas Albigensium, though digs suggest only a modest Roman town. In 1035–42 the Pont Vieux was built across the Tarn, and its tolls and the trade it carried made the medieval town rich, with new quarters rising around it.

The town gave its name to the Albigensian Crusade, launched in 1208 against the Cathars of the region. Repression was severe, many Cathars were burnt, and the region, until then almost independent, passed to the French crown. In its wake Bishop Bernard de Castanet completed the Palais de la Berbie as a fortress and in 1282 began the cathedral of Sainte-Cécile, a statement of Catholic power in brick; its tower was finished in 1492. A small Jewish community was destroyed during the Shepherds' Crusade of the 1320s.

From the 15th century the woad trade brought a new age of prosperity, and the fine Renaissance mansions of the dye merchants still stand in the old town. In the 19th century industry arrived — glassmaking, hatmaking and coal from nearby Carmaux — and in 1896 the workers' glassworks, the Verrerie ouvrière d'Albi, was founded as a self-managed cooperative with Jean Jaurès's support. In 2010 the Episcopal City was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Albi's identity is written in its red brick. With Toulouse and Montauban it is one of the main brick-built towns of Languedoc, and the cathedral, the bishops' palace, the Pont Vieux and the mansions of the old town share the same warm colour. The contrast between the cathedral's severe, defensive outside and its painted interior, with a rood screen of more than 200 polychrome statues, is the town's great set piece.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, born in Albi in 1864, is its most famous son, and the museum in the Berbie holds the world's largest public collection of his work. The explorer Lapérouse has his own museum, and the Lycée Lapérouse, where Jean Jaurès taught and Georges Pompidou studied, is a well-known school in an old monastery.

Rugby is the local sport in both codes: SC Albi plays union in Pro D2 and RC Albi league in the Elite One Championship. The Tour de France has held stages here, in 2007 and 2019. The calendar runs from the February carnival through the student theatre festival Acthéa in April to Pause Guitare in early July.

About 51,000 people lived in the commune in 2023, and about 75,000 in the urban area; the population has grown in recent years. As prefecture of the Tarn and seat of an archbishop, the town has the department's administration, a hospital and a growing higher-education sector, led by the École des Mines d'Albi-Carmaux, founded in 1992, and the Champollion university institute.

Industry has shrunk since the coal era, but the Verrerie ouvrière d'Albi still dominates the town's industry, and tourism to the Episcopal City and the museum is a mainstay. Residents live in the old centre and in districts on both sides of the river, from La Madeleine and Cantepau in the north to Le Lude and Bellevue in the south.

Life has the pace of a southern country town. The Place du Vigan, now pedestrianised, is the meeting point, the covered market anchors the morning shopping, and summer evenings are spent on the terraces and along the Tarn.

Albi sits beside a vineyard with very old roots. The Gaillac appellation, just down the Tarn, claims to be among the earliest wine-growing areas of Gaul, with production established in the first century; Roman merchants shipped its wine to Bordeaux down the river, England was buying it by 1253, and François I gave Henry VIII fifty barrels at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. Its rooster emblem dates from a privilege of 1387.

The Tarn's best-known farm product is the pink garlic of Lautrec, in the west of the department, protected by a Label Rouge since 1966 and a geographical indication since 1996.

The covered market, renovated as a place to meet as well as shop, is the centre of food buying in the old town. Restaurants with terraces cluster around the Place Sainte-Cécile, facing the cathedral, while the streets around the Place du Vigan and Rue Émile-Grand have everyday cafés, crêperies and inexpensive eateries.