Country museums started to appear in the 1970s, combining ecology and museums (hence the French name of écomusée) and putting cross-disciplinary methods to the relations between man and the environment into application in a museum.
The different geological zones in the Cévennes National Park each have their own individual landscape, but all have been fashioned by man. The houses, which meld into the scenery, are home to tradition and culture.
This makes an ideal melting pot to blend ecology and ethnology, encouraging the Park to set up the country museums to interpret these disciplines. After a lengthy preparatory phase, the Mont-Lozère country museum, spread across four main sites, officially opened in 1984.
Building on its success, a few years later the Cévennes country museum was developed as a partnership between the Park and local cultural organisations. A more recent addition is the Causse country museum.
