A secteur sauvegardé since 1985, and 81 historic monuments

Cathédrale orthodoxe Saint-Nicolas et chapelle du tsarévitch Nicolas AlexandrovitchClasséÉglise Saint-RochClasséVilla Beau SiteClasséPalais de la Préfecture, ancien palais des rois de SardaigneClasséAncienne abbaye de Saint-Pons, actuellement hôpital PasteurClassé+61See all photos

Photos from Wikimedia Commons, copied to our own server, each credited to its photographer with its license; names open the monument’s page.

A site patrimonial remarquable protects a whole area rather than one building: inside it, building work follows the area’s own plan and needs the agreement of the architecte des Bâtiments de France. A PSMV (plan de sauvegarde et de mise en valeur) is the strictest plan: it covers every building, inside as well as out.

The list gives no boundaries, so the map can’t show the area.

Classé is the higher protection: any work on the building needs the State’s permission. Work on an inscrit building must be declared to the State in advance. Around both, building work in sight of the monument (usually within 500 m) needs the agreement of the architecte des Bâtiments de France.

Points as the ministry gives them: a monument spread over several plots has one point. 3 monuments have no point on the map.

3 more, named only by their kind

3 more are named in the list only by their kind: 2 buildings (immeubles) and 1 house (maison), most from the 18th century. The 3 with an address are in the list above, by it.

See all 81 on the map

First protected, in 1865: Arènes de Cimiez. 5 were protected in 1992 alone. 16 have been added since 2011.

Everyone born in Nice Birthplaces from Wikidata, checked against Wikipedia.

Nice’s oldest monument, Grotte préhistorique du Lazaret, dates from prehistory. In all there are 81 historic monuments, 36 of them classé, including Fort du Mont-Alban. Its old center has been a secteur sauvegardé since 1985. Cathédrale Sainte-Reparate sits at the heart of it all, with 9 of the town’s classé monuments within 400 m. In 2025 the Mission Patrimoine picked Châteaux de Valrose, actuellement Université de Nice (Faculté des Sciences) as a monument in danger to save.

Of the 110 people born here before 1900, the best known include Ludovico Brea (1450), Charles André van Loo (1705) and Henry Cavendish (1731). 11 of its monuments are in the Baroque style. The rest is about typical: it has 81 historic monuments, about typical for a town its size (the middle one has 66); per resident it sits near the middle of compared French towns; and 8.1% of its homes were built before 1919, close to the 7.4% in the median compared French town.