What is the oldest tree in Lyon?
Lyon has no single documented oldest tree, but its most precisely dated remarkable tree is the Pin de Bunge, also called the Pin de Napoléon, in the Parc de la Tête d'Or, planted around 1856 during the park's creation and now roughly 170 years old. It carries France's national Arbre Remarquable label and is described by the label association as having no equivalent elsewhere in the country.
Lyon is one of the few cities on this list with an actual published inventory to work from: the city government maintains a list of nationally labelled Arbres Remarquables, awarded by the A.R.B.R.E.S. association, and the Metropole publishes open data on protected trees across Greater Lyon. That inventory favours species rarity, size and documented planting circumstances over sheer age, which is why the Pin de Bunge, a Chinese species first introduced to Europe through Kew Gardens in the 19th century, anchors this list rather than an oak or a yew. It stands along the perimeter path of the Tête d'Or's arboretum, a five minute walk from the Boulevard des Belges entrance, in a park that itself holds France's Ensemble Arboré Remarquable label for the whole collection. Older individual claims exist elsewhere in the city, a cedar on the Saône island of Île Barbe where monks are documented gardening for over a thousand years, but none carry the same precisely dated planting record the Pin de Bunge does.
One of Lyon's trees also appears in The Autumn Harvest, a themed collection spanning several cities.