216 historic monuments, the oldest from Antiquity

ImmeubleClasséImmeubleClasséImmeubleClasséImmeubleClasséAbbaye de Clairvaux (ancienne)Classé+197See 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.

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. 2 monuments have no point on the map.

58 more, named only by their kind

58 more are named in the list only by their kind: 43 buildings (immeubles), 8 houses (maisons), 3 town houses (hôtels) and 4 others, most from the 15th and 16th centuries. The 58 with an address are in the list above, by it.

See all 216 on the map

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.

First protected, in 1840: Ancienne chartreuse de Champmol, actuellement centre psychothérapique de Dijon, Église Notre-Dame and Église Saint-Michel. That was France’s first list of monuments historiques, drawn up in Prosper Mérimée’s time as inspector. 30 were protected in 1937 alone. 16 have been added since 2011.

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

Ancien Hôtel Lemullier de Bressey, from Antiquity, is the oldest monument in Dijon. All told, the list holds 216 historic monuments, 72 of them classé. For its size, it has more historic monuments than 90% of compared French towns. Only one of the 41 towns nearest its size has more historic monuments.

Parts of it lie in 2 sites patrimoniaux remarquables, the first protected in 2019. Most entries on the list, 79%, are houses and homes. Of the 181 with a date, 108 come from the 16th to 18th centuries. Otherwise the figures are ordinary: 9.9% of its homes were built before 1919, close to the 7.4% in the median compared French town.