Founded as a royal bastide by the king's seneschal from Toulouse, Agot de Baux, on 8 June 1342, it was originally an open town on a featureless plain.

During the Hundred Years' War, the townspeople successfully lobbied for the right to protect themselves and built a kilometre of ramparts six metres high and four gates at the points of the compass.

[5] The most notable physical feature of Revel is its central square, partially covered by a 14th-century roof, supported by wooden pillars and topped by a distinctive bell-tower.

[6] Every Saturday morning, a market is held in the square and surrounding streets in which a variety of goods, but especially food and clothing, are for sale.

Just south of Revel, where the land begins to slope upwards into the Montagne Noire regional park, is the Lac de Saint-Ferréol, a man-made lake dating from the seventeenth century which is linked to and supplies water to the Canal du Midi.