Looking for recreational land for sale in Bouches-du-Rhône (13) means looking at a department of contrasts, between the marshy Camargue, the Crau plain and the garrigue-covered hills of the Alpilles and the Sainte-Victoire massif: reedbeds and salt meadows to the south, pine and holm-oak woods on the hills, stony steppe land on the Crau. On this page, ma-propriete.fr gathers the listings of recreational land for sale in Bouches-du-Rhône: a garrigue plot, pine woodland, a meadow beside a Camargue pond, land to develop in the Alpilles.
You will find price benchmarks drawn from actual sales, an overview of the areas where these plots are concentrated, and the points to check before buying a parcel classified as agricultural or natural. Before any viewing, go through our guide on how to turn agricultural land into recreational land: it sums up what the PLU tolerates, what it forbids and the formalities to expect.
There is no such thing as a "recreational land price" in the French notarial records: the DVF database records sales of agricultural land, woodland and ponds, and a recreational plot is priced against these three benchmarks, higher or lower depending on what it adds (vehicle access, a water point, fencing, an existing shelter, a village nearby). The table below gives, for each benchmark, the sales recorded in 2025 in Bouches-du-Rhône (13), the median price and the range between the first decile (floor) and the ninth decile (ceiling), with the national figure for comparison.
| DVF 2025 benchmark | Sales | Median price | Range (P10 – P90) | France median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bare agricultural land (€/ha) * | 59 | €13,518/ha | €5,947/ha – €23,101/ha | €5,307/ha |
| Woodland (€/ha) | 48 | €9,936/ha | €4,216/ha – €23,975/ha | €4,934/ha |
| Pond (€/m²) * | 313 | €2.54/m² | €1.03/m² – €6.90/m² | €2.54/m² |
Bare agricultural land is well above the national median (€5,307/ha), with the median price moving -9.8% between 2020 and 2025. Woodland trades well above the national benchmark (€4,934/ha), and a pond, a much rarer asset, is valued per square metre of water and banks. To compare a listing, bring everything back to the square metre: €13,518/ha of bare land is €1.35/m², against €2.54/m² for a pond. Recreational land, almost always classified as an agricultural or natural zone, generally sells slightly above bare agricultural land; but it usually remains subject to the SAFER land agency's right of pre-emption, and the SAFER may pre-empt with a downward price revision if the price is excessive compared with local land prices. These benchmarks therefore also help you avoid paying a price the SAFER would challenge.
Find the detail by department, plot size and year in our agricultural land price observatory and in the forest price observatory. Source: DVF (Demandes de valeurs foncières), 2025 sales, processed by ma-propriete.fr; medians published from 30 sales upwards. * Fewer than 30 sales in the department: the benchmark shown is the regional figure for "Bare agricultural land"; national figure for "Pond".
In the Camargue, around Arles and Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, plots are salt meadows, reedbeds and sansouires, often classed as a Natura 2000 wetland and strictly non-constructible land, sometimes with a traditional gardian cabin. In the Alpilles and on the slopes of the Sainte-Victoire, the plots are Aleppo-pine and holm-oak woods in garrigue, often terraced with olive trees close to villages. These hills also keep a few hay meadows and old almond orchards, rarer than the surrounding woods.
The Crau plain, between Salon-de-Provence and Istres, is a special case: its coussouls, dry stony grasslands, are protected for biodiversity and rarely available for sale in small plots. Ponds are absent here outside the large Camargue lagoons, themselves classed as nature reserves, which explains the near-total absence of plots with a private stretch of water in the department. A ditch or an irrigation channel, inherited from former agricultural estates, sometimes serves as the only water feature on Crau plots.
The Alpilles, around Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Eygalières and Maussane-les-Alpilles, hold the most sought-after garrigue and terraced plots, well served by the A7 and A54 motorways. The Aix area, towards Trets and the northern slope of the Sainte-Victoire, offers pine woods and wooded hills close to Aix-en-Provence, which has a TGV station. The Camargue, around Arles, offers marshland and salt-meadow plots, constrained by the loi Littoral in communes bordering the Vaccarès lagoon and the Mediterranean coast. Around Martigues and the Berre lagoon, industrialised along part of its shoreline, natural plots remain scarcer and often split into smaller parcels.
The most affordable areas remain the fringes of the Crau and the outskirts of Arles, away from the urban pressure of Aix and Marseille. Wooded plots in the Alpilles and on the Sainte-Victoire slope, much sought after for their setting, sell well above the regional average, as do the few farmland plots close to Aix-en-Provence.
The first step is to check the commune’s local planning document (PLU): in an agricultural (A) or natural (N) zone, any new building is in principle prohibited, and a cabin or a caravan cannot be installed freely. In the Camargue and along the coast, the loi Littoral and Natura 2000 status add strong further restrictions; in wetlands, the French water law also governs any development. Check real access to the plot (rural track, right of way, landlocked parcel), the frequent absence of water and electricity away from inhabited farmhouses, and the risk of forest fire, high in the pine massifs of the Alpilles and the Sainte-Victoire. On plots close to the Vaccarès lagoon, also check whether any hunting or fishing rights are attached to the land.
On agricultural parcels, the SAFER land agency may exercise its right of pre-emption, with a risk of the price being revised downward if it strays sharply from local land prices. Ask for the exact cadastral area and whether the boundaries have been surveyed, particularly on large Crau or Camargue plots that come from old agricultural estates and were sometimes divided informally between family members over the years, well before any formal land registry update.
The listings of recreational land in Bouches-du-Rhône published on ma-propriete.fr come from private sellers, estate agents and notaries. Filter by area, price and geographic zone, then set up an e-mail alert to be notified of new plots. You can also widen your search to recreational land for sale in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.
