The only French national park in the low mountains, it is home to a significant permanent
population and cultural heritage. It has about 76,000 inhabitants. They are very unevenly divided over 152 districts: low-density rural areas on the one hand, areas under urban influence on the other.
The Park consists of two zones: the core area and the membership zone. The core area is the jewel of the Park, a quite exceptional territory that must be preserved for future generations. It is strictly protected by law.
Its terrain, deeply shaped by history and human hands, offers up a mosaic of landscapes with very special characteristics. The exceptional and very diverse landscapes of the Cévenol valleys, the granite massifs of Mont Lozère, Bougès, Aigoual and Lingas, and the immense karstic plateaux of the Causse Méjean are the legacy of the interaction between generations of human beings and a physical environment “to be tamed”.
To date, the Cévennes National Park is one of the areas in Europe where the strongest biological enrichment took place in the last twenty years.
The fauna is extremely diverse, with over 2,400 species. Mediterranean, Continental and Alpine species are all found here, as are species from forest, steppe and rock habitats, or those linked to humid environments. The abundant fauna consists of 70 species of mammals (of the 135 in France), 195 species of bird (of which 135 breed here), 16 species of amphibians, 15 species of reptiles, 23 species of fish and over 2,000 species of invertebrates (including 1,824 of insects).
The flora is rich as well. About 2,300 plant species have been itemised in the Park, 24 of them endemic ; 41 plant species benefit from national protection and 6 from regional protection.