The Most Remarkable Ancient Places in France
6 places · updated 6 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most remarkable ancient places in France are Pont du Gard, Roman Theatre of Orange and Arena of Nîmes. The list covers 6 ancient places. Last updated 6 October 2026.
Southern France was Rome's first province beyond the Alps, and the name Provence still recalls it. For centuries Gallia Narbonensis was so thoroughly Romanised that its cities received theatres, arenas, arches and aqueducts on the same scale as Italy's, and many survived because they were reused as fortresses, quarters or churches instead of being torn down. Add the Louvre, which gathered masterpieces of Greek sculpture in the 19th century, and France holds both the monuments of its own antiquity and some of the most famous works of the ancient Mediterranean.
The Pont du Gard carried water to Roman Nîmes across the Gardon valley on three tiers of arches and is the tallest surviving Roman aqueduct bridge. The Roman Theatre of Orange keeps its full stage wall, with a statue of Augustus still in its central niche, and the Triumphal Arch of Orange from the same era is covered with reliefs of battles and captives. The Arena of Nîmes, one of the best-preserved Roman amphitheatres, is still used for large events. In Paris, the Venus de Milo, found on the island of Melos in 1820, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace, standing on a ship's prow at the top of the Daru staircase, represent the Hellenistic Greek world at its most refined.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pont du Gard | Aqueduct | ✓ |
| 2 | Roman Theatre of Orange | Roman theatre | ✓ |
| 3 | Arena of Nîmes | Amphitheatre | |
| 4 | Triumphal Arch of Orange | Triumphal arch | ✓ |
| 5 | Venus de Milo | Sculpture | |
| 6 | Winged Victory of Samothrace | Sculpture |
01 Pont du Gard
France · 19.8 km from Nîmes43.947° N 4.535° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Sloopng from Pixabay In the 1st century AD the Roman colony of Nemausus, today's Nîmes, needed water and found it at a spring near Uzès. The two towns are only about 20 km apart, but hills covered in dense garrigue lay between them, so the engineers took a winding route of some 50 km, mostly underground, with a total drop of just 17 metres. 8 metres high. 5 cm along its length.
Did you know? Coins found in the outflow at Nîmes suggest the aqueduct was built between about AD 40 and 60, in the reign of Claudius.
02 Roman Theatre of Orange
Théâtre antique d'Orange
France44.136° N 4.809° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by fietzfotos from Pixabay The Roman Theatre of Orange is one of the best-preserved Roman theatres anywhere, and its great stage wall still stands to its full original height. It was built early in the 1st century AD under Augustus for the Roman colony of Arausio, founded by veterans of the Second Legion. UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage Site in 1981.
Did you know? The colony it served was founded in 40 BC with the full name Colonia Julia Firma Secundanorum Arausio.
03 Arena of Nîmes
Arènes de Nîmes
France · 0.9 km from Nîmes43.835° N 4.360° E
Krzysztof Golik · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Roman amphitheatre of Nîmes rises straight out of the city's streets, an oval 133 metres long and 101 wide, its outer wall 21 metres high and pierced by two storeys of sixty arches. Built around 100 AD, only some twenty years after the Colosseum, it is among the best-preserved Roman amphitheatres anywhere and one of the twenty largest of the roughly four hundred known.
Did you know? In the 12th century the fortified arena became a residential quarter with its own churches of St Peter and St Martin.
04 Triumphal Arch of Orange
Arc antique d'Orange
France44.142° N 4.805° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Xavier D'ABRIGEON · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Triumphal Arch of Orange is one of the best-preserved Roman arches anywhere, and the oldest surviving example of the three-bay design later used for the Arch of Septimius Severus and the Arch of Constantine in Rome itself. It stands on the old Via Agrippa at the northern entrance to Orange, a town in the Rhône valley.
Did you know? A single bronze letter L from the lost dedication was found in the 19th century and then mislaid; only the fixing holes survive.
05 Venus de Milo
France · 1.2 km from Paris48.860° N 2.337° E
Image by NakNakNak from Pixabay The Venus de Milo is a marble statue of a half-draped woman, a little over two metres tall, almost certainly representing Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. It was carved in the Hellenistic period, most likely in the second century BC, from fine Parian marble, and has been in the Louvre since 1821.
Did you know? Salvador Dalí built several paintings and sculptures around her, including The Hallucinogenic Toreador, and Yves Klein, Arman and Jim Dine also reworked her image.
06 Winged Victory of Samothrace
France · 1.2 km from Paris48.861° N 2.338° E
Gargarapalvin · CC BY-SA 4.0 She has lost her head and both arms, yet the Nike of Samothrace remains one of the most physical, wind-filled figures that survive from antiquity.
Did you know? Her ship-shaped base is built from 16 blocks in three tiers, and a seventeenth block that helped balance the load still lies on Samothrace.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most remarkable ancient places in France?
- On our list, Pont du Gard ranks first, followed by Roman Theatre of Orange and Arena of Nîmes.
- Why are there so many Roman monuments in southern France?
- The region became a Roman province in the late 2nd century BC, earlier than the rest of Gaul, and its cities such as Nîmes, Arles and Orange were richly built up. Many monuments survived because later generations kept using them.
- How was the Pont du Gard used?
- It carried an aqueduct channel that brought spring water from near Uzès to the Roman city of Nemausus, today's Nîmes, in the 1st century AD.
- Why is the Venus de Milo in Paris?
- After the statue was found on Melos in 1820, it was acquired by the French, presented to King Louis XVIII and given to the Louvre, where it has been ever since.
- How many ancient places are on this list in France?
- The list covers 6 ancient places.