Avignon

Avignon serves as the prefecture of the Vaucluse department, located in southern France within the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. The commune sits on the left bank of the Rhône River and, as of 2023, has a population of 92,188. Roughly 16,000 of these residents—according to estimates from Avignon’s municipal services—live within the medieval walls that enclose the ancient town centre. The wider Communauté d'agglomération du Grand Avignon, a cooperative grouping of 16 communes, counted 197,102 inhabitants in 2022.

The city is best known for the Avignon Papacy: between 1309 and 1377, seven popes in succession resided here. In 1348, Pope Clement VI purchased the town from Joanna I of Naples. Papal control lasted until 1791, when the French Revolution brought Avignon into France. Today, it is the capital of the Vaucluse department and one of the few French cities that still retains its city walls, earning it the nickname “La Cité des Papes” (The City of the Popes).

The historic centre—which includes the Palais des Papes, Avignon Cathedral, and the Pont d’Avignon—was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995, recognized for its architecture and its importance during the 14th and 15th centuries. These medieval monuments, along with the annual Festival d’Avignon—one of the world’s largest performing arts festivals—have made the city a major tourist destination.

The earliest recorded forms of the name come from Greek sources: Aueniṑn (from Stephen of Byzantium and Strabo) and Aouenníōn (from Ptolemy). The Roman name Avennĭo Cavărum, meaning “Avignon of the Cavares,” indicates that Avignon was one of three cities of the Celtic-Ligurian Cavares tribe, alongside Cavaillon and Orange. The modern name derives from a pre-Indo-European or pre-Latin root ab-ên with the suffix -i-ōn(e), likely a hydronym linked to the Rhône or possibly an oronym referring to the Rocher des Doms. The 1st-century BC Auenion was Latinized to Avennĭo (or Avēnĭo) in the 1st century AD. In Occitan, it is written Avinhon (classic spelling) or Avignoun (Mistralian spelling); inhabitants are called avinhonencs or avignounen in both standard Occitan and Provençal.

Geographically, Avignon lies on the left bank of the Rhône, a few kilometres above its confluence with the Durance, about 580 km southeast of Paris, 229 km south of Lyon, and 85 km north-northwest of Marseille. To the west, it borders the Gard department and the communes of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon and Les Angles; to the south, it borders Bouches-du-Rhône and the communes of Barbentane, Rognonas, Châteaurenard, and Noves. Nearby cities include Orange to the north, Carpentras to the northeast, Salon-de-Provence, Aix-en-Provence, and Marseille to the southeast, Arles to the south, and Nîmes and Montpellier to the southwest. Directly to the east and north are Caumont-sur-Durance, Morières-lès-Avignon, Le Pontet, and Sorgues.

The region is rich in limestone, used extensively for building. The current city walls, 4,330 metres long, were built with a soft local limestone called mollasse burdigalienne. Within the walls, the Rocher des Doms is a 35-metre-high limestone elevation of Urgonian type, safe from Rhône flooding, and forms the city’s original core. Several limestone massifs surround the commune, including the Massif des Angles, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, and the Alpilles, partly resulting from the oceanisation of the Ligurian-Provençal basin after the migration of the Sardo-Corsican block. The other notable elevation is the Montfavet Hill, a wooded hill in the east.

The Rhône Valley is an old alluvial zone with loose deposits covering much of the ground—sandy alluvium mixed with pebbles of siliceous rocks. Islands in the Rhône, such as the Île de la Barthelasse, formed from accumulated alluvial deposits and human intervention. The relief is generally low, though mounds were created for local flood protection. The surrounding land contains clay, silt, sand, and limestone.

The Rhône passes the western edge of the city, splitting into two branches: the Petit Rhône (or “dead arm”) flows next to Avignon, while the Grand Rhône (or “live arm”) passes Villeneuve-lès-Avignon in Gard. These branches are separated by the Île de la Barthelasse, whose southern tip once formed a separate island, the Île de Piot. The Rhône’s banks and the Île de la Barthelasse frequently flood in autumn and March. Maurice Champion’s *Floods in France since the 6th century until today* documents many such events up to 1862, including the major flood of 1856 that damaged the walls. Flooding has continued—notably in 1943–1944, on 23 January 1955, and on 2 December 2003—leading to updated risk mapping. The Durance flows along the commune’s southern boundary into the Rhône, marking the border with Bouches-du-Rhône. Known as “capricious,” it was once called the “3rd scourge of Provence” for its floods and low water, exhibiting both Alpine and Mediterranean morphology. Numerous natural and artificial lakes exist in the commune, such as the Lake of Saint-Chamand east of the city.