Carcassonne is a fortified French town in the Aude department, in the Region of Occitanie. Inhabited since the Neolithic period, it is located in the Aude plain between historic trade routes. The city is famous for the Cité de Carcassonne, a medieval fortress restored by the theorist and architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1853 and added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1997. Consequently, Carcassonne relies heavily on tourism but also counts manufacture and wine-making as some of its other key economic sectors.