The Roman and Romanesque Monuments of Arles were listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1981 for their testimony to the history of the region.

Additionally, many artists have lived and worked in this area, including Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin and Jacques Réattu.

[8] The Dutch post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh lived in Arles from 1888 to 1889, and produced over 300 paintings and drawings during his time there.

It covered an area of some 40 hectares (99 acres) and possessed a number of monuments, including an amphitheatre, triumphal arch, Roman circus, theatre, and a full circuit of walls.

This unusual design was a way of coping with the river's frequent violent floods, which would have made short work of a conventional bridge.

The city reached a peak of influence during the 4th and 5th centuries, when Roman Emperors frequently used it as their headquarters during military campaigns in Europe.

Suspected by the Arian Visigoth Alaric II of conspiring with the Burgundians to turn over the Arelate to Burgundy, he was exiled for a year to Bordeaux in Aquitaine.

[16] The friction between the Arian Christianity of the Visigoths and the Catholicism of the bishops sent out from Rome established deep roots for religious heterodoxy, even heresy, in Occitan culture.

Despite this tension and the city's decline in the face of barbarian invasions, Arles remained a great religious centre.

The Barbegal aqueduct and mill is a Roman watermill complex located on the territory of the commune of Fontvieille, a few kilometres from Arles.

[18] The capacity of the mills has been estimated at 4.5 tons of flour per day, sufficient to supply enough bread for 12,000 of the 30,000–40,000 inhabitants of Arelate at that time.

Examination of the mill leat still just visible on one side of the hill shows a substantial accretion of lime in the channel, tending to confirm its long working life.

Vertical water mills were well known to the Romans, being described by Vitruvius in his De Architectura of 25 BC, and mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History of 77 AD.

In 735, after raiding the Lower Rhône, Andalusian Saracens led by Yusuf ibn 'Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri moved into the stronghold summoned by Count Maurontus, who feared Charles Martel's expansionist ambitions, though this may have been an excuse to further Muslim expansion beyond Iberia.

The next year, Charles campaigned south to Septimania and Provence, attacking and capturing Arles from the Muslim Arabs after destroying Avignon.

During these troubled times, the amphitheatre was converted into a fortress, with watchtowers built at each of the four quadrants and a minuscule walled town being constructed within.

The town regained political and economic prominence in the 12th century, with the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa traveling there in 1178 for his coronation.

However, van Gogh's mental health deteriorated and he became alarmingly eccentric, culminating in the ear-severing incident in December 1888 which resulted in two stays in the Old Hospital of Arles.

Arles was an important Jewish crossroads, as a port city and close to Spain and the rest of Europe alike.

It served a major role in the work of the Hachmei Provence group of famous Jewish scholars, translators and philosophers, who were most important to Judaism throughout the Middle Ages.

In the eighth century, jurisdiction over the Jews of Arles was passed to the local Archbishop, making the Jewish taxes to the clergy somewhat of a shield for the community from mob attacks, most frequent during the Crusades.

The city is constantly, but especially in the winter months, subject to the influence of the mistral, a cold wind which can cause sudden and severe frosts.

Rainfall (636 mm per year) is fairly evenly distributed from September to May, with the summer drought being less marked than in other Mediterranean areas.

In September–October 2007, divers led by Lucas Longas from the French Department of Subaquatic Archaeological Research, headed by Michel L'Hour, discovered a life-sized marble bust of an apparently important Roman person in the Rhône near Arles, together with smaller statues of Marsyas in Hellenistic style and of the god Neptune from the third century AD.

Elkins argued for the third century AD as the terminus post quem for the deposition of the statues, refuting the claim that the bust was thrown away due to feared repercussions from Caesar's assassination in 44 BC.

Every Easter and on the first weekend of September, during the feria, Arles also holds Spanish-style corridas (in which the bulls are killed) with an encierro (bull-running in the streets) preceding each fight.

The Gare d'Arles railway station offers connections to Avignon, Nîmes, Marseille, Paris, Bordeaux and several regional destinations.

The A54 autoroute toll motorway, which locally connects Salon-de-Provence with Nîmes and in a wider sense forms part of European route E80, passes by Arles.

The Rhône, which for navigation purposes is classified as a Class V waterway as far upstream as Lyon, is a historically important transport route connecting the inland Rhône-Alpes region with the Mediterranean Sea.

The port of Arles and its adjacent rail and road connections provides a major transshipment node, which in 2013 handled approximately 450,000 tonnes of goods.