Carcassonne

In the sixth century BC the hilltop of Carsac was a trading place, fortified by the Volcae Tectosages as an oppidum. The Romans fortified the hill around 100 BC, and the lower courses of the northern ramparts still date from Gallo-Roman times. The Visigoths held the town from AD 453, and a medieval county of Carcassonne later ruled the city and its surroundings. In 1067 it passed by marriage to Raimond-Bernard Trencavel, whose family began building the Château Comtal in 1130.

Carcassonne was a Cathar stronghold when the crusading army of the papal legate Arnaud Amalric besieged it in August 1209. Viscount Raymond-Roger Trencavel was imprisoned while negotiating a surrender and died in his dungeon three months later, and the inhabitants were expelled. Simon de Montfort took the viscounty, and the city submitted to the French crown in 1247. Louis IX founded a new town across the river for the expelled population — the Bastide Saint-Louis — and he and Philip III built the outer walls, making Carcassonne a border fortress facing Aragon.

The Treaty of the Pyrenees moved the border south in 1659, and Carcassonne became a centre of the woollen cloth trade until the Ottoman market collapsed late in the 18th century. The abandoned citadel fell into such ruin that a decree of 1849 ordered its demolition; the antiquary Jean-Pierre Cros-Mayrevieille and the writer Prosper Mérimée campaigned to save it, and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc restored it from 1853. His slate roofs were criticised as northern rather than local, but the Cité was listed by UNESCO in 1997.

The town's identity is bound up with the Cité, which has been a romantic symbol since the 19th century. Gustave Nadaud's poem about a man who dreamed all his life of seeing Carcassonne and died without doing so was translated into English several times and set to music by Georges Brassens; Lord Dunsany and William Faulkner each wrote a story called "Carcassonne", and the walls inspired the board game of the same name, released in 2000. Films have used the ramparts as a backdrop, including Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Occitan was the language of Carcassonne and Languedoc before French, and the town's Occitan name, Carcassona, is close to the Latin. Summer is the season of spectacle: the Festival de Carcassonne fills July and August with concerts, theatre and dance, the 14 July fireworks light up the walls, and jousting displays take place between the ramparts. In 2018, for the 20th anniversary of the UNESCO listing, the artist Felice Varini mounted giant yellow concentric circles of painted aluminium on the walls from May to September.

Rugby is the local sport. AS Carcassonne, founded in 1938, is the town's rugby league club, while Union Sportive Carcassonnaise plays rugby union in Pro D2; both share the Stade Albert Domec. The Tour de France regularly finishes stages here, and it was in Carcassonne in 2021 that Mark Cavendish equalled Eddy Merckx's record of 34 stage wins.

The commune had about 46,000 inhabitants in 2023, and Carcassonne Agglo, the wider grouping of communes, about 114,000. The population has grown almost continuously since 1800, peaked in 2009 and has since dipped slightly. As prefecture of the Aude, the town has the department's offices, courts and services alongside the tourist trade.

Tourism drives the economy: about three million visitors come each year, most of them to the Cité, and boat trips on the Canal du Midi add to the trade. The lower town has manufactured shoes, rubber and textiles, and Carcassonne is the centre of a large wine-growing area. Most residents live in the Bastide and the districts beyond it rather than in the Cité, which is overwhelmingly given over to visitors; social housing is concentrated in the Viguier and La Conte neighbourhoods, which have large immigrant communities.

Life in the Bastide follows the southern pattern of morning shopping, a long lunch and evenings in the squares. In summer the town is crowded and lively; in winter the Cité empties and the lower town carries on at its own pace. The river and the climate bring risks as well as pleasures — the Aude flooded the area in October 2018, and summer heat has passed 43°C.

Cassoulet is the dish most associated with Carcassonne: a slow-cooked stew of haricot beans with meat, named after its traditional cooking pot. Tradition places its invention in nearby Castelnaudary during a siege of 1355, and Prosper Montagné, editor of the original Larousse Gastronomique, called the cassoulets of Castelnaudary, Carcassonne and Toulouse "the Trinity", with Carcassonne's version made with leg of mutton and, in season, partridge. It is on the menus of most restaurants in the Cité and the lower town.

The restaurants clustered around the Cité's main square cater largely to visitors and are busiest on summer evenings; rue Trivalle, between the Cité and the river, and the squares and pedestrian streets of the Bastide offer more everyday places to eat.

Wine is the other pillar. The vineyards around the town use the appellations Minervois, Minervois La Livinière, Corbières, Malepère, Cabardès and Languedoc, along with the Cité de Carcassonne local wine label. To the south, Limoux is known for Blanquette de Limoux, and wine historians believe the world's first sparkling wine was made at the abbey of Saint-Hilaire nearby in 1531.