Criterion(I): The Val de Loire is remarkable for the quality of its architectural heritage, with its historic towns such as Blois, Chinon, Orléans, Saumur and Tours, and especially for its world renowned châteaux such as Chambord.
Criterion (II): The Val de Loire is an exceptional cultural landscape running the length of a major river. It bears witness to the changing influences of mankind's values and to the harmonious development of interactions between man and the environment over two thousand years of history.
Criterion (IV): The countryside of the Val de Loire, and more especially its numerous cultural monuments, illustrates, to an exceptional degree, the impact of the ideals of the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment on the thinking and the creation of Western Europe.

Report of the 24th Committee Meeting

Brief description
The Val de Loire is an exceptional cultural landscape of outstanding natural beauty comprising historic town and villages, major architectural monuments – châteaux – and land cultivated and moulded by centuries of interactions between populations and their physical environment, particularly the Loire river itself.