Béziers Cathedral

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Béziers (Lat.: Biterrensis)was situated in southern France, in Languedoc, west of the Rhone River. The diocese was in existence by the beginning of the 5th century. It was a suffragan (subordinate) of the archdiocese of Narbonne. In 1790, during the French Revolution, the Catholic diocese of Béziers and several others were suppressed by the Constituent Assembly, and their territory assigned to a new Constitutional Diocese of Hérault, whose schismatic bishop was seated at Béziers. The Catholic diocese of Béziers was abolished by Pope Pius VII in 1801, and never revived. It is no longer an independent diocese, and is part of the Diocese of Montpellier.

The Musée des Beaux-Arts is a museum in Béziers, founded by the town's archaeological, scientific and literary society and opened to the public in the Hôtel de ville in 1859. It moved to Auguste Fabrégat's hôtel particulier, left to the town by him in 1879. In 1966 Gustave Fayet's family gave their hôtel particulier at 9 rue du Capus to the town and early in the 1980s that building became an annexe to the museum, mainly housing the works by the sculptor Jean-Antoine Injalbert which were left to the town by his widow in 1934. By 2030 an art and history museum will occupy the former episcopal palace after it was vacated by the Palais de Justice.

The Hôtel de Ville (French pronunciation: [otɛl də vil], City Hall) is a municipal building in Béziers, Hérault, southern France, standing on Place Gabriel Péri. The building was designated a monument historique by the French government in 1935.

The arrondissement of Béziers is an arrondissement of France in the Hérault department in the Occitanie région. Its INSEE code is 341 and its capital city is Béziers. It has 152 communes. Its population is 321,879 (2021), and its area is 3,091.2 km2 (1,193.5 sq mi). It is the southernmost of the arrondissements of the department. The main cities in the arrondissement, with more than 10,000 inhabitants in 2019, are Béziers (78,308 inhabitants) and Agde (29,600 inhabitants).

The Orb Aqueduct (French: Pont-canal de l'Orb, Pont-canal de Béziers) is a bridge which carries the Canal du Midi over the Orb in the city of Béziers in Languedoc, France. The aqueduct is 28 metres (92 ft) wide, 12 metres (39 ft) tall and at 240 metres (790 ft) is the longest on the Canal du Midi. Prior to the opening of the aqueduct in 1858, the Canal du Midi traversed a short section of the Orb itself. The opening of the aqueduct allowed boats to avoid the river, which was unpredictable and sometimes dangerous, and often caused extended delays. For example, in 1779 exceptional floods caused the river section to be impassable for seventeen days. Various schemes were proposed to bypass the Orb; an aqueduct of over 1 km in length was proposed in 1739 and in 1756 a plan to carry the canal in a tunnel under the Orb was put forward. However, neither proposal was implemented. In April 1854, the Chief Engineer of the Canal Company, M. Magues, prepared designs for the present aqueduct together with new channels to take the canal from the side of the seventh and second lowest chamber of the Fonserannes Lock, across the Orb and to rejoin the original course of the Canal du Midi. The plans involved the construction of two new locks, the Orb Lock and the Béziers Lock, as well as a canal basin to the east of the Orb. Permission for the new works was granted by a decree of Emperor Napoleon III in June 1854 and the construction was completed by May 1856 and opened for use in 1858. The aqueduct is built of stone with seven spans and carries the canal in a masonry trough sealed with a layer of concrete. There are towpaths on each side of the waterway and underneath are two arcaded walkways. The walkways are now not accessible except for maintenance. The concrete seal was replaced in 1951 but otherwise the original structure is intact.

The canton of Béziers-2 is an administrative division of the Hérault department, southern France. Its borders were modified at the French canton reorganisation which came into effect in March 2015. Its seat is in Béziers.

Béziers station (French: Gare de Béziers; Occitan: Gara de Besièrs) is a French railway station that serves the town of Béziers in the Hérault département of southern France. It is on the Bordeaux–Sète railway.

Hérault (French pronunciation: [eʁo]; Occitan: Erau, [eˈɾaw]) is a department of the region of Occitania, Southern France. Named after the river Hérault, its prefecture is Montpellier. It had a population of 1,230,289 in 2023.

Béziers (French: [bezje] ; Occitan: Besièrs) is a city in southern France. It is a subprefecture of the Hérault department in the Occitanie region. Every August Béziers hosts the famous Feria de Béziers, which is centred on bullfighting. A million visitors are attracted to the five-day event. The town is located on a small bluff above the river Orb, about ten kilometres (six miles) from the Mediterranean coast and 75 kilometres (47 miles) southwest of Montpellier. At Béziers, the Canal du Midi passes over the river Orb by means of the Pont-canal de l'Orb, an aqueduct claimed to be the first of its kind.

The Massacre at Béziers occurred on 22 July 1209 during the sack of Béziers by crusaders. It was the outcome of the Siege of Béziers, which was the first major military action of the Albigensian Crusade.

A water slope (French: Pente d'eau) is a type of canal inclined plane built to carry boats from a canal or river at one elevation up or down to a canal or river at another elevation.

The Fonseranes Water Slope (French: Pente d'eau Fonséranes) is a disused inclined plane on the Canal du Midi parallel to the Fonseranes Locks. It has a rise of 13.6 m (45 ft) and a slope of 5°. This technique for a water slope was described by the French engineer Jean Aubert in 1961. It was designed to lift vessels of up to 350 tonnes displacement. The slope, the second and last to be constructed in France, was built between 1980 and 1983 with the intent of augmenting the seven locks at the Fonseranes Locks, allowing larger boats to pass without extensive rework of the existing locks; these would continue to serve smaller boats. Trial operations commenced in May 1984. However, within weeks a number of technical problems emerged as oil leaking from the hydraulic system lubricated the concrete tracks and the wheels on the lift were unable to gain sufficient traction to raise the chamber to the top of the slope. It took until 1986 to resolve the technical, contractual, and insurance issues. This problem was never satisfactorily resolved and the slope was abandoned officially on 11 April 2001. The first water slope in France was the Montech water slope on the Canal de Garonne in the commune of Montech.