In the French coal basin of Nord-pas-de-Calais, Germany's Ruhr and Saarland, England, Wales, and Belgium, coal was brought to the surface in hundreds of coal mines for many years. Today, coal mines have become heritage sites or have been demolished.
From 1905 to 1988, coal was extracted from the underground in the Charles Ledoux coal mine in Condé-sur-l'Escaut in France.
The south Welsh Rhondda valley was one of the world's largest mining regions for almost a hundred years, but after the turbulent closures, only a handful of coal mines survived.
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A collapsed and flooded complex of mining galleries stretches between 600 and 800 metres below the cyclocross World Cup 2025 course in the northern French town of Liévin.
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