The Canal du Midi

Pierre-Paul Riquet was responsible for opening the Canal du Midi, waterway between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic in the 17th century. Unesco calls it "one of the modern era’s most extraordinary achievements.”

Unesco World Heritage site - Languedoc-Roussillon, South of France

The Canal du Midi - World Heritage Site

As a child, Pierre-Paul Riquet had been in the States of Languedoc council chamber (where his father sat), when plans for a canal joining the two seas were presented. For the rest of his life, the idea obsessed him. In 1662, at the age of 53, he decided to realise his childhood dream and dig a canal linking the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. He dedicated the rest of his life to the project. When he died, in October 1680 in Toulouse, the work was almost finished and the Mediterranean Sea was just three miles from the building site.

In 1681, the Canal du Midi was filled with water and opened by the King’s representatives. During the 14 years’ of construction, 1,000 men and women were permanently employed on the site. For some sections, such as the digging of the canal between Trèbes and Sète, this number reached 10,000. To build the port of Sète, 12,000 men were needed. From 17th to the 19th century the canal was a hive of activity, with an uninterrupted procession of boats laden with goods or passengers, like lines of lorries on a motorway.

 In 1994, the VNF (Voies Navigables de France) - the authority which manages the canal - suggested that the Canal du Midi should be added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites. The Canal du Midi was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites in 1996.

Boating holidays on the Canal du Midi.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION :
Voies Navigables de France Sud-Ouest (in French)
Tél : + 33 (0)5 61 36 24 24

See the Unesco website