Puy de Dôme is a lava dome and one of the youngest volcanoes in the Chaîne des Puys region of Massif Central in central France. This chain of volcanoes including numerous cinder cones, lava domes and maars is far from the edge of any tectonic plate. Puy de Dôme was created by a Peléan eruption, some 10,700 years ago. Puy de Dôme is approximately 10 kilometres (6 mi) from Clermont-Ferrand. The Puy-de-Dôme département is named after the volcano.

In pre-Christian Europe, Puy de Dôme served as an assembly place for spiritual ceremonies. Temples were built at the summit, including a Gallo-Roman temple of Mercury, the ruins of which were discovered in 1873.

In 1648, Florin Périer, at the urging of Blaise Pascal, supported Evangelista Torricelli's theory that barometric observations were caused by the weight of air by measuring the height of a column of mercury at three elevations on Puy de Dôme.

In 1875, a physics laboratory was built at the summit. Since 1956, a TDF (Télédiffusion de France) antenna is also located there. On the top of the mountain, there is a transmitter for FM and TV.

The Puy de Dôme is one of the most visited sites in the Auvergne region, attracting nearly 500,000 visitors a year. The summit offers expansive views of the surrounding area. It is a well-known centre for paragliding.

The summit can be reached by two pedestrian paths: a southern one ("Le sentier des muletiers", formerly a Roman road) and a northern one ("Le sentier des chèvres") which runs past the Nid de la Poule crater. The GR 4 long-distance trail includes both paths to cross the mountain.

Since May 2012, visitors can also go up the mountain by train with the Panoramique des Dômes, a rack railway.

A road exists along the train tracks but it is closed to the general traffic, except for the military, service vehicles or emergencies.

At the top of the mountain, restaurants and shops are available as well as a visitor centre giving information on the history and geology of the area.

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