Châteaudun

Châteaudun occupies a position on the Loir about halfway between Orléans and Chartres. Its Latin name, Castrodunum, recalls an old fortified place, and settlement here continued from the Gallo-Roman period into the medieval town. The river supplied the community with water and a route through rich agricultural land, while the slight eminence above it gave the castle a commanding view of the approaches.

In the Middle Ages Châteaudun became the capital of the County of Dunois. Its château was founded in the tenth century and stood on the road leading from Paris toward the Loire Valley. For generations the fortress represented lordly authority above a town whose own identity grew around service, trade and the cultivation of the surrounding plain. Castle and town formed a single political landscape even when their interests diverged.

Fire repeatedly forced the town to rebuild. After the blaze of 1723, streets radiating from the central square acquired a new regularity. That geometrical plan sits beneath the surviving medieval and early modern buildings and makes later reconstruction part of the town’s visible history. Its river, château and ordered streets therefore preserve separate layers of local life, from Gallo-Roman settlement and county government to repeated destruction and renewal.