Located in the Conflent region of Catalonia (now in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in France), at the confluence of the Têt and Cady rivers, Villefranche-de-Conflent bars the road down the valley from Mont-Louis and Spain. The town is dominated by the mountainsides around it, which provide many ideal locations for enemy batteries to hammer the walls, so it was fortified for the beginning, since it was founded, in 1098. Captured by the French in 1654, it was part of the program of construction and improvement of outlying French defenses led by through 1707 by Marshal Vauban. Therefore it was included in 2008 in the UNESCO World Heritage Site named Fortifications of Vauban.
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