Between the Causses and the Cevennes, Nant is located in the heart of a green valley, at the confluence of two rivers, the Dourbie and its main affluent, the Durzon. Built on a tufa bank, at an altitude of 495 m, the village has expanded all around a monastery founded in 926, which was raised into a Benedictine abbey in 1135, and was suppressed in 1777.
Hardly touched by the one hundred year war and mainly by the religious wars, during which the cloister and the monastic buildings were destroyed, the village knew a high prosperity in the second half of the 17th century. A secondary school, run by the brothers of the Christian Doctrine had been created in 1665. Nant’s markets and fairs, which were held in a covered market, were very prosperous.
Today, the farmers much less numerous than in the past, keep on exploiting the land and breeding ewes whose milk is used to make the Roquefort cheese. For a few decades, Nant has become a village which is highly appreciated by the tourists who are looking for quietness, authentic landscapes and the practice of outdoor sports.

Natural Patrimony

Nant is situated in the Dourbie gorges, on the Atlantic side of the Cevennes.

The Dourbie river has its source in the "Mount Aulas" (1200 meters high), in the Mount Aigoual massif, it digs its bed in granite, then in schist. From Nant, the Dourbie goes through the Grand Causses’ calcareous rocks, which were shaped and turned into very steep gorges which separate the "Causse Noir" and the "Causse du Larzac". Then, it flows into the Tarn in Millau, after a course of seventy-kilometres.

The "Grand Causses" are made up of calcareous formations dating from the Jurassic, organized into Karstic systems which produce a dozen important springs in the valley.

The Durzon spring located seven kilometres from Nant re-appears at the foot of the Larzac, forming a large basin. The Durzon flows into the Dourbie at "La Mouline".

Under the influence of the Mediterranean climate, the flora includes lots of rare, endemic or protected species: hellebores, campanulas, catananches, thyme, orchids, aphyllantes of Montpellier, and on the Causses, the "Cardabelle" and the "Stipe Pennée".

The fauna is very rich too: the genet, the squirrel and various birds of prey. In the rivers, the diving-cincle, and the beaver reintroduced in the Dourbie river in 1987.