The built and technical heritage associated with the pit tops led jointly, and in close harmony with a dedication to the earth, to another form of architectural heritage: the mining settlement.

Coron des 120, Anzin

Cité Darcy, Hénin-Beaumont

The Coalfield is characterised by an abundance and diversity of employers' constructions, in terms of workers’ housing and their collective amenities: there are today more than six hundred mining estates (70,000 dwellings).

According to the changing techniques and ways of thinking which characterised each era, these policies brought about numerous forms of dwelling, from mining villages (corons) to residential neighbourhoods, and from garden estates to modern dwellings. Numerous forms of collective social amenities also sprang up to meet housing needs: schools, and also churches, hospitals, community centres, sports facilities, and so on.

The Coalfield today stands out as a vast laboratory in the fields of mining housing and social policy, a constant compromise between the companies’ wish to control their workforce and their desire to experiment and innovate to improve comfort, hygiene, architecture and urban development.

Cité Bruno ancienne- Dourges	Cité Pinson - Raismes	Coron Dorignies - Douai	Cité du 10 - Sains-en-Gohelle