Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin

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Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Bassin minier du Nord-Pas-de-Calais - Vues generales du patrimoine.jpg
Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin is an area of great architectural and landscape diversity.
Location Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France
Includes108 components
Criteria Cultural: (ii), (iv), (vi)
Reference 1360
Inscription2012 (36th Session)
Area3,943 ha (9,740 acres)
Buffer zone18,804 ha (46,470 acres)
Coordinates 50°27′45″N3°32′46″E / 50.46250°N 3.54611°E / 50.46250; 3.54611
France relief location map.jpg
Red pog.svg
Location of Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin in France

The Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin is a mining basin in Northern France that stretches across the Nord and Pas-de-Calais departments. The region is famous for its long history of coal extraction and its testimony to a significant period in the history of industrialisation in Europe, and as a result it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2012. [1] This area has been shaped by three centuries of coal extraction from the late 17th century through the 20th century, and demonstrates the evolution of coal mining techniques and worker conditions during that time. [1]

Contents

Nord-Pas de Calais mining basin location on French coal basins map. Localisation - bassin houiller du Nord-Pas-de-Calais.svg
Nord-Pas de Calais mining basin location on French coal basins map.

Description and history

The Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin is the western part of a coal-rich sedimentary basin that continues across the Belgian border. In France, the basin covers 1,200 square kilometers, including the cities of Béthune, Lens, Douai, and Valenciennes. [2] Because of its long history of mining as the predominant industry, the region's architecture and landscape are unique. [1]

Although coal was first discovered in the basin in 1660 and the first pit was dug around 1692[ citation needed ], there was little coal extraction in the north of France until the mid 18th century. [2] However, with the increasing scarcity of timber and the collapse of the First French Empire in 1815, the coal pits near Valenciennes were expanded and mining companies began to form in the region. [2] In the 1840s, the western part of the basin was discovered.

Starting with the Second French Empire in the 1850s, the Nord-Pas-de-Calais mining basin became the most important mining basin in France. By 1880, the basin output nearly 8 million tonnes, and in the early 1900s accounted for a third of all coal mining in France. [2] The famous novel Germinal, written by Émile Zola in 1885, describes the harsh conditions and working life of the miners during the expansion of coal extraction in the region. The Courrières mine disaster occurred in the region in 1906, leading to the death of 1,099 people. [2]

During World War I, the Western Front bisected the region, and the eastern part of the mining basin was flooded. [2] By 1930, however, the basin had a peak output of 35 million tonnes, employing about 75,000 workers and accounting for 60% of France's national coal production. [2] After World War II, production began to decline, as many of the mines had started to deplete and conditions became more arduous. Strikes in 1968 and 1971 hastened the decline, and all of the mines in the area were essentially closed by the late 1980s. [2]

World Heritage Site

The World Heritage Site comprises 108 components of the once-prolific mines in the area, preserving sites of mining operation including 17 mining pits, 21 headgears (used to support the lift systems over the mine), 51 slag heaps, coal transport infrastructure (including mining cars and railway stations), workers’ estates, and mining villages. Within the mining villages protected by the site there are schools, religious buildings, health and community facilities, company premises, owners and managers’ houses, and town halls.

See also

Related Research Articles

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Nord-Pas-de-Calais ; Picard: Nord-Pas-Calés); is a former administrative region of France. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region Hauts-de-France. It consisted of the departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais. Nord-Pas-de-Calais borders the English Channel (west), the North Sea (northwest), Belgium and Picardy (south). Until the 17th century, the history of the North was largely in common with the history of Belgium, that of a land that “for almost a thousand years served as a battlefield for all of Europe.” The majority of the region was once part of the historical Southern Netherlands, but gradually became part of France between 1477 and 1678, particularly during the reign of king Louis XIV. The historical French provinces that preceded Nord-Pas-de-Calais are Artois, French Flanders, French Hainaut and (partially) Picardy. These provincial designations are still frequently used by the inhabitants. The former administrative region was created in 1956 under the name "Nord" and maintained that name until 1972 when "Pas-de-Calais" was added. This remained unchanged until its dissolution in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lens, Pas-de-Calais</span> Subprefecture and commune in Hauts-de-France, France

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carvin</span> Commune in Hauts-de-France, France

Carvin is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loos-en-Gohelle</span> Commune in Hauts-de-France, France

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spoil tip</span> Pile built of accumulated spoil

A spoil tip is a pile built of accumulated spoil – waste material removed during mining. Spoil tips are not formed of slag, but in some areas, such as England and Wales, they are referred to as slag heaps. In Scotland the word bing is used. In North American English the term is mine dump or mine waste dump.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruay-sur-l'Escaut</span> Commune in Hauts-de-France, France

Bruay-sur-l'Escaut is a commune in the Nord department in northern France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Courrières mine disaster</span> 1906 coal mine explosion in Pas-de-Calais, France

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bois du Cazier</span> Coal mine near Charleroi

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint-Étienne Mine Museum</span>

The Saint-Étienne Mine Museum is a French museum founded in 1991 in the city of Saint-Étienne in the French department of the Loire situated in the Rhône-Alpes region. It presents the facilities of a former coalmine. The site is registered as a historical monument since 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Compagnie des mines d'Anzin</span> French mining company

The Compagnie des mines d'Anzin was a large French mining company in the coal basin of Nord-Pas-de-Calais in northern France. It was established in 1756 and operated for almost 200 years.

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The Compagnie des mines de Bruay was a French coal extraction company which operated in the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin between 1850 and 1946. It operated 18 mine shafts at eight production sites in Bruay-la-Buissière, Haillicourt, Divion and Houdain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Compagnie des mines de Béthune</span> French coal mining company

The Compagnie des mines de Béthune, sometimes called the sometimes called the Compagnie de Grenay after the name of the concession, was a French coal mining company in the Pas-de-Calais that was established in 1851 and nationalized in 1946. The company had 11 mines, each with one or more shafts for extraction of coal or ventilation. It had a large facility for screening and washing raw coal, and for producing coke and other secondary products. During World War I (1914–1918) the front line crossed the mining concession, with the northern part occupied by the Germans, but despite constant shelling production of coal continued. Coke production peaked at 565,195 tons in 1928. The company had two thermal electricity plants, and operated 159 kilometres (99 mi) of railway tracks. At its peak the company was one of the largest coal mining operations in the region, with 12,640 employees in 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Notre-Dame Mine Shaft</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coron (house)</span> Type of working-class housing found in France and Belgium

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The 1941 Nord-Pas-de-Calais miners' strike, also known as the patriotic strike of the 100,000 miners of Nord-Pas-de-Calais or the 10-day strike, lasted from the 27th of May to the 10th of June 1941 and was the first large-scale strike under Nazi occupation. It was one of the largest and longest strike to occur in Nazi-occupied Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint-Charles shaft</span> French coal mine shaft

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Polish immigration to the Nord-Pas-de-Calais coalfield took place before and especially after the First World War. It took place mainly in the second half of the 1920s, when the mines, drowned in October and November 1918 by the Germans at the end of the war, were once again usable. Half of the Polish immigrants had initially entered Germany as Westphalian miners.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Nord-Pas-de-Calais". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin (France): No. 1360 (Report). ICOMOS. 14 March 2021. Retrieved 4 December 2021.