Paris () is the
capital and
most populous city
The United Nations uses three definitions for what constitutes a city, as not all cities in all jurisdictions are classified using the same criteria. Cities may be defined as the city proper, cities proper, the extent of their urban area, or th ...
of
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
, with an estimated
population
Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...
of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi),
making it the
30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of
finance,
diplomacy
Diplomacy comprises spoken or written communication by representatives of states (such as leaders and diplomats) intended to influence events in the international system.Ronald Peter Barston, ''Modern diplomacy'', Pearson Education, 2006, p. ...
,
commerce
Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions directly and indirectly related to the exchange (buying and selling) of goods and services among two or more parties within local, regional, nation ...
,
fashion
Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion i ...
,
gastronomy
Gastronomy is the study of the relationship between food and culture, the art of preparing and serving rich or delicate and appetizing food, the cooking styles of particular regions, and the science of good eating. One who is well versed in gastr ...
, and
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
. For its leading role in the arts and sciences, as well as its very early system of street lighting, in the 19th century it became known as "the City of Light". Like
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, prior to the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, it was also sometimes called
the capital of the world.
The City of Paris is the centre of the
Île-de-France
The Île-de-France (, ; literally "Isle of France") is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France. Centred on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the country and often called the ''Région parisienne'' (; en, Pa ...
region
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics ( physical geography), human impact characteristics ( human geography), and the interaction of humanity an ...
, or Paris Region, with an estimated population of 12,262,544 in 2019, or about 19% of the population of France,
making the region France's
primate city. The Paris Region had a
GDP
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...
of €739 billion ($743 billion) in 2019, which is the highest in Europe. According to the
Economist Intelligence Unit
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is the research and analysis division of the Economist Group, providing forecasting and advisory services through research and analysis, such as monthly country reports, five-year country economic forecasts, ...
Worldwide Cost of Living Survey, in 2022, Paris was the city with the ninth-highest cost of living in the world.
Paris is a major railway, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports:
Paris–Charles de Gaulle
Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (french: Aéroport de Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle, ), also known as Roissy Airport or simply Paris CDG, is the principal airport serving the French capital, Paris ( and its metropolitan area), and the largest intern ...
(the second-busiest airport in Europe) and
Paris–Orly. Opened in 1900, the city's subway system, the
Paris Métro
The Paris Métro (french: Métro de Paris ; short for Métropolitain ) is a rapid transit system in the Paris metropolitan area, France. A symbol of the city, it is known for its density within the capital's territorial limits, uniform architec ...
, serves 5.23 million passengers daily; it is the second-busiest metro system in Europe after the
Moscow Metro
The Moscow Metro) is a metro system serving the Russian capital of Moscow as well as the neighbouring cities of Krasnogorsk, Reutov, Lyubertsy and Kotelniki in Moscow Oblast. Opened in 1935 with one line and 13 stations, it was the first ...
.
Gare du Nord is the 24th-busiest railway station in the world and the busiest located outside
Japan, with 262 million passengers in 2015. Paris is especially known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
received 2.8 million visitors in 2021, despite the long museum closings caused by the
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...
virus. The
Musée d'Orsay,
Musée Marmottan Monet
Musée Marmottan Monet ( en, Marmottan Museum of Monet) is an art museum in Paris, France, dedicated to artist Claude Monet. The collection features over three hundred Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings by Claude Monet, including his 1 ...
and
Musée de l'Orangerie
The Musée de l'Orangerie ( en, Orangery Museum) is an art gallery of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings located in the west corner of the Tuileries Garden next to the Place de la Concorde in Paris. The museum is most famous as the ...
are noted for their collections of French
Impressionist art. The
Pompidou Centre
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
Musée National d'Art Moderne
The Musée National d'Art Moderne (; "National Museum of Modern Art") is the national museum for modern art of France. It is located in Paris and is housed in the Centre Pompidou in the 4th arrondissement of the city. In 2021 it ranked 10th in t ...
has the largest collection of
modern
Modern may refer to:
History
* Modern history
** Early Modern period
** Late Modern period
*** 18th century
*** 19th century
*** 20th century
** Contemporary history
* Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century
Phil ...
and
contemporary art
Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic co ...
in Europe and
Musée Rodin
The Musée Rodin ( en, Rodin Museum) in Paris, France, is a museum that was opened in 1919, primarily dedicated to the works of the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. It has two sites: the Hôtel Biron and surrounding grounds in central Paris, as ...
and
Musée Picasso. The historical district along the Seine in the city centre has been classified as a
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
since 1991; popular landmarks there include the
Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris on the
Île de la Cité
Île de la Cité (; English: City Island) is an island in the river Seine in the center of Paris. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of the Roman governor. In 508, Clovis I, the first King of the Franks, established his palace ...
, now closed for renovation after the
15 April 2019 fire. Other popular tourist sites include the Gothic royal chapel of
Sainte-Chapelle
The Sainte-Chapelle (; en, Holy Chapel) is a royal chapel in the Gothic style, within the medieval Palais de la Cité, the residence of the Kings of France until the 14th century, on the Île de la Cité in the River Seine in Paris, France.
...
, also on the Île de la Cité; the
Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.
Locally nicknamed "' ...
, constructed for the
Paris Universal Exposition of 1889; the
Grand Palais and
Petit Palais
The Petit Palais (; en, Small Palace) is an art museum in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France.
Built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle ("universal exhibition"), it now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts (''Musée des beaux-arts ...
, built for the
Paris Universal Exposition of 1900; the
Arc de Triomphe on the
Champs-Élysées
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées (, ; ) is an avenue in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, long and wide, running between the Place de la Concorde in the east and the Place Charles de Gaulle in the west, where the Arc de Triomphe is l ...
, and the hill of
Montmartre
Montmartre ( , ) is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Right Bank. The historic district established by the City of Paris in 1995 is bordered by Rue Ca ...
with its artistic history and its
Basilica of Sacré-Coeur.
Paris hosts several
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
organisations including
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
, and other international organisations such as the
OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
, the
OECD Development Centre
The OECD Development Centre was established in 1961 as an independent platform for knowledge sharing and policy dialogue between Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member countries and developing economies, allowing these co ...
, the
International Bureau of Weights and Measures
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (french: Bureau international des poids et mesures, BIPM) is an intergovernmental organisation, through which its 59 member-states act together on measurement standards in four areas: chemistry ...
, the
International Energy Agency, the
International Federation for Human Rights, along with European bodies such as the
European Space Agency, the
European Banking Authority
The European Banking Authority (EBA) is a regulatory agency of the European Union headquartered in Paris. Its activities include conducting stress tests on European banks to increase transparency in the European financial system and identifying ...
or the
European Securities and Markets Authority
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) is an independent European Union Authority located in Paris.
ESMA replaced the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) on 1 January 2011. It is one of the three new European Sup ...
.
The
football club
Paris Saint-Germain
Paris Saint-Germain Football Club (), commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain, Paris, Paris SG or simply PSG is a professional football club based in Paris, France. They compete in Ligue 1, the top division of French football. As Fr ...
and the
rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...
club
Stade Français are based in Paris. The 80,000-seat
Stade de France, built for the
1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of
Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual
French Open Grand Slam
Grand Slam most often refers to:
* Grand Slam (tennis), one player or pair winning all four major annual tournaments, or the tournaments themselves
Grand Slam or Grand slam may also refer to:
Games and sports
* Grand slam, winning category te ...
tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
tournament on the red clay of
Roland Garros. The city hosted the Olympic Games in
1900
As of March 1 ( O.S. February 17), when the Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day further behind, bringing the difference to 13 days until February 28 ( O.S. February 15), 2 ...
,
1924
Events
January
* January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after.
* January 20– 30 – Kuomintang in China holds ...
and will host the
2024 Summer Olympics
)
, nations = TBA
, athletes = 10,500 ''(quota limit)''
, events = 329 in 32 sports (48 disciplines)
, opening = 26 July 2024
, closing = 11 August 2024
, opened_by =
, stadium = Stade de France Jardins du Trocadéro and River Seine
, summe ...
. The
1938 and
1998 FIFA World Cups, the
2007 Rugby World Cup, as well as the
1960
It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism.
Events
January
* Jan ...
,
1984
Events
January
* January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888.
* January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...
and
2016
File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses duri ...
UEFA European Championship
The UEFA European Football Championship, less formally the European Championship and informally the Euro, is the primary association football tournament organised by the Union of European Football Associations ( UEFA). The competition is conte ...
s were also held in the city. Every July, the
Tour de France
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...
bicycle race
"Bicycle Race" is a song by the British rock band Queen. It was released on their 1978 album ''Jazz'' and written by Queen's lead singer Freddie Mercury. It was released as a double A-side single together with the song " Fat Bottomed Girls", rea ...
finishes on the
Avenue des Champs-Élysées
Avenue or Avenues may refer to:
Roads
* Avenue (landscape), traditionally a straight path or road with a line of trees, in the shifted sense a tree line itself, or some of boulevards (also without trees)
* Avenue Road, Bangalore
* Avenue Road, Lon ...
in Paris.
Etymology
The ancient
oppidum
An ''oppidum'' (plural ''oppida'') is a large fortified Iron Age settlement or town. ''Oppida'' are primarily associated with the Celtic late La Tène culture, emerging during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, spread across Europe, stretchi ...
that corresponds to the modern city of Paris was first mentioned in the mid-1st century BC by
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, ...
as ''Luteciam Parisiorum'' ('
Lutetia
The Gallo-Roman town of ''Lutetia'' (''Lutetia Parisiorum'' in Latin, in French ''Lutèce'') was the predecessor of the modern-day city of Paris. It was founded in about the middle of the 3rd century BCE by the Parisii, a Gallic tribe. Trac ...
of the
Parisii')'','' and is later attested as ''Parision'' in the 5th century AD, then as ''Paris'' in 1265.
During the Roman period, it was commonly known as ''Lutetia'' or ''Lutecia'' in Latin, and as ''Leukotekía'' in Greek, which is interpreted as either stemming from the
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
* Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Fo ...
root ''*lukot-'' ('mouse'), or from *''luto-'' ('marsh, swamp'), depending on whether the Latin or Greek form is the closest to the original
Gaulish
Gaulish was an ancient Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switze ...
name.
The name ''Paris'' is derived from its early inhabitants, the
Parisii (Gaulish: ''Parisioi''), a
Gallic tribe from the
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...
and the
Roman period. The meaning of the Gaulish
ethnonym remains debated. According to
Xavier Delamarre
Xavier Delamarre (; born 5 June 1954) is a French linguist, lexicographer, and diplomat. He is regarded as one of the world's foremost authorities on the Gaulish language.
Since 2019, he has been an associate researcher for the CNRS- PSL AOrOc ...
, it may derive from the Celtic root ''pario-'' ('cauldron').
Alfred Holder
Alfred Theophil Holder (4 April 1840 – 12 January 1916) was an Austrian philologist, historian, and librarian. A specialist of Latin literature and Roman history, he is best known for his editions of Horace, Caesar, Tacitus, and Avianus, as wel ...
interpreted the name as 'the makers' or 'the commanders', by comparing it to the
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
''peryff'' ('lord, commander'), both possibly descending from a
Proto-Celtic
Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly reconstructed through the comparative method. Proto-Celti ...
form reconstructed as *''kwar-is-io''-. Alternatively,
Pierre-Yves Lambert Pierre-Yves Lambert (born 30 May 1949) is a French linguist and scholar of Celtic studies. He is a researcher at the CNRS and a lecturer at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Celtic linguistics and philology. Lambert is the director of the j ...
proposed to translate ''Parisii'' as the 'spear people', by connecting the first element to the
Old Irish
Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writt ...
''carr'' ('spear'), derived from an earlier *''kwar-sā''.
[, s.v. ''Parisii'' and ''Lutetia''.] In any case, the city's name is not related to the
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
of
Greek mythology
A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities ...
.
Paris is often referred to as the 'City of Light' (''La Ville Lumière''), both because of its leading role during the
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
and more literally because Paris was one of the first large European cities to use gas
street lighting on a grand scale on its boulevards and monuments.
Gas lights were installed on the
Place du Carrousel
The Place du Carrousel () is a public square in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, located at the open end of the courtyard of the Louvre Palace, a space occupied, prior to 1883, by the Tuileries Palace. Sitting directly between the museum and the Tu ...
,
Rue de Rivoli
Rue de Rivoli (; English: "Rivoli Street") is a street in central Paris, France. It is a commercial street whose shops include leading fashionable brands. It bears the name of Napoleon's early victory against the Austrian army, at the Battle of R ...
and
Place Vendome in 1829. By 1857, the Grand boulevards were lit. By the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps. Since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as ''Panam(e)'' () in
French slang
A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argot ...
.
Inhabitants are known in English as "Parisians" and in French as ''Parisiens'' (). They are also pejoratively called ''Parigots'' ().
[The word was most likely created by Parisians of the lower popular class who spoke *argot*, then *parigot* was used in a provocative manner outside the Parisian region and throughout France to mean Parisians in general.]
History
Origins
The ''
Parisii'', a sub-tribe of the
Celtic
Senones
The Senones or Senonii (Gaulish: "the ancient ones") were an ancient Gallic tribe dwelling in the Seine basin, around present-day Sens, during the Iron Age and the Roman period.
Part of the Senones settled in the Italian peninsula, where they ...
, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the area's major north–south trade routes crossed the
Seine on the
île de la Cité
The Île de la Cité (; English: City Island) is an island in the river Seine in the center of Paris. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of the Roman governor. In 508 Clovis I, the first King of the Franks, established his p ...
; this meeting place of land and water trade routes gradually became an important trading centre. The Parisii traded with many river towns (some as far away as the Iberian Peninsula) and minted their own coins for that purpose.
![ParisiiCoins](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/ParisiiCoins.jpg)
The
Romans
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
conquered the
Paris Basin
The Paris Basin is one of the major geological regions of France. It developed since the Triassic over remnant uplands of the Variscan orogeny (Hercynian orogeny). The sedimentary basin, no longer a single drainage basin, is a large sag in th ...
in 52 BC and began their settlement on Paris's
Left Bank
In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography, as follows.
In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terra ...
. The Roman town was originally called
Lutetia
The Gallo-Roman town of ''Lutetia'' (''Lutetia Parisiorum'' in Latin, in French ''Lutèce'') was the predecessor of the modern-day city of Paris. It was founded in about the middle of the 3rd century BCE by the Parisii, a Gallic tribe. Trac ...
(more fully, ''Lutetia Parisiorum'', "Lutetia of the Parisii", modern French ''Lutèce''). It became a prosperous city with a forum, baths, temples, theatres, and an
amphitheatre
An amphitheatre (British English) or amphitheater (American English; both ) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ('), from ('), meaning "on both sides" or "around" and ...
.
By the end of the
Western Roman Empire
The Western Roman Empire comprised the western provinces of the Roman Empire at any time during which they were administered by a separate independent Imperial court; in particular, this term is used in historiography to describe the period ...
, the town was known as ''Parisius'', a
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
name that would later become ''Paris'' in French.
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century AD by Saint
Denis, the first Bishop of Paris: according to legend, when he refused to renounce his faith before the Roman occupiers, he was beheaded on the hill which became known as ''Mons Martyrum'' (Latin "Hill of Martyrs"), later "
Montmartre
Montmartre ( , ) is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Right Bank. The historic district established by the City of Paris in 1995 is bordered by Rue Ca ...
", from where he walked headless to the north of the city; the place where he fell and was buried became an important religious shrine, the
Basilica of Saint-Denis
The Basilica of Saint-Denis (french: Basilique royale de Saint-Denis, links=no, now formally known as the ) is a large former medieval abbey church and present cathedral in the commune of Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris. The building ...
, and many French kings are buried there.
Clovis the Frank, the first king of the
Merovingian dynasty
The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from the middle of the 5th century until 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the Franks and northern Gauli ...
, made the city his capital from 508. As the Frankish domination of Gaul began, there was a gradual immigration by the
Franks
The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...
to Paris and the Parisian
Francien dialects were born. Fortification of the
Île de la Cité
Île de la Cité (; English: City Island) is an island in the river Seine in the center of Paris. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of the Roman governor. In 508, Clovis I, the first King of the Franks, established his palace ...
failed to avert
sacking by Vikings in 845, but Paris's strategic importance—with its bridges preventing ships from passing—was established by successful defence in the
Siege of Paris (885–886)
The siege of Paris of 885–886 was part of a Viking raid on the Seine, in the Kingdom of the West Franks. The siege was the most important event of the reign of Charles the Fat, and a turning point in the fortunes of the Carolingian dynasty ...
, for which the then
Count of Paris
Count of Paris () was a title for the local magnate of the district around Paris in Carolingian times. After Hugh Capet was elected King of France in 987, the title merged into the crown and fell into disuse. However, it was later revived by the ...
(''comte de Paris''),
Odo of France
Odo (french: Eudes; c. 857 – 1 January 898) was the elected King of West Francia from 888 to 898. He was the first king from the Robertian dynasty. Before assuming the kingship, Odo was the count of Paris. His reign marked the definitive sepa ...
, was elected king of
West Francia
In medieval history, West Francia (Medieval Latin: ) or the Kingdom of the West Franks () refers to the western part of the Frankish Empire established by Charlemagne. It represents the earliest stage of the Kingdom of France, lasting from about ...
. From the
Capetian
The Capetian dynasty (; french: Capétiens), also known as the House of France, is a dynasty of Frankish origin, and a branch of the Robertians. It is among the largest and oldest royal houses in Europe and the world, and consists of Hugh Ca ...
dynasty that began with the 987 election of
Hugh Capet
Hugh Capet (; french: Hugues Capet ; c. 939 – 14 October 996) was the King of the Franks from 987 to 996. He is the founder and first king from the House of Capet. The son of the powerful duke Hugh the Great and his wife Hedwige of Saxony, ...
, Count of Paris and
Duke of the Franks
The title Duke of the Franks ( la, dux Francorum) has been used for three different offices, always with "duke" implying military command and "prince" implying something approaching sovereign or regalian rights. The term "Franks" may refer to an ...
(''duc des Francs''), as king of a unified West Francia, Paris gradually became the largest and most prosperous city in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
.
High and Late Middle Ages to Louis XIV
![Palais de la Cite](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Palais_de_la_Cite.jpg)
By the end of the 12th century, Paris had become the political, economic, religious, and cultural capital of France. The
Palais de la Cité
The Palais de la Cité (), located on the Île de la Cité in the Seine River in the centre of Paris, is a major historic building that was the residence of the Kings of France from the sixth century until the 14th century, and has been the center ...
, the royal residence, was located at the western end of the Île de la Cité. In 1163, during the reign of
Louis VII,
Maurice de Sully Maurice de Sully (died 11 September 1196) was Bishop of Paris from 1160 until his retirement in 1196. He was responsible for the construction of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame.
Biography
He was born to poor parents at Sully-sur-Loire (Soliacum), ne ...
, bishop of Paris, undertook the construction of the
Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre-Dame de Paris (; meaning "Our Lady of Paris"), referred to simply as Notre-Dame, is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité (an island in the Seine River), in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. The cathedral, dedicated to the ...
at its eastern extremity.
After the marshland between the river Seine and its slower 'dead arm' to its north was filled in from around the 10th century, Paris's cultural centre began to move to the Right Bank. In 1137, a new city marketplace (today's
Les Halles) replaced the two smaller ones on the
Île de la Cité
Île de la Cité (; English: City Island) is an island in the river Seine in the center of Paris. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of the Roman governor. In 508, Clovis I, the first King of the Franks, established his palace ...
and
Place de Grève (Place de l'Hôtel de Ville). The latter location housed the headquarters of Paris's river trade corporation, an organisation that later became, unofficially (although formally in later years), Paris's first municipal government.
In the late 12th century,
Philip Augustus extended the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
fortress to defend the city against river invasions from the west, gave the city its first walls between 1190 and 1215, rebuilt its bridges to either side of its central island, and paved its main thoroughfares. In 1190, he transformed Paris's former cathedral school into a student-teacher corporation that would become the
University of Paris
, image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of Arms
, latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis
, motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin)
, mottoeng = Here and a ...
and would draw students from all of Europe.
With 200,000 inhabitants in 1328, Paris, then already the capital of France, was the most populous city of Europe. By comparison, London in 1300 had 80,000 inhabitants.
By the early fourteenth century so much filth had collected inside urban Europe that French and Italian cities were naming streets after human waste. In medieval Paris, several street names were inspired by merde, the French word for “shit.” There were rue Merdeux, rue Merdelet, rue Merdusson, rue des Merdons, and rue Merdiere—as well as a rue du Pipi.
![P1030887 Paris IV hôtel de Sens rwk](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/P1030887_Paris_IV_h%C3%B4tel_de_Sens_rwk.JPG)
During the
Hundred Years' War, Paris was occupied by England-friendly
Burgundian forces from 1418, before being occupied outright by the English when
Henry V of England entered the French capital in 1420; in spite of a 1429 effort by
Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc (french: link=yes, Jeanne d'Arc, translit= an daʁk} ; 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronat ...
to liberate the city, it would remain under English occupation until 1436.
In the late 16th-century
French Wars of Religion
The French Wars of Religion is the term which is used in reference to a period of civil war between French Catholics and Protestants, commonly called Huguenots, which lasted from 1562 to 1598. According to estimates, between two and four mi ...
, Paris was a stronghold of the
Catholic League, the organisers of 24 August 1572
St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in which thousands of French Protestants were killed. The conflicts ended when pretender to the throne
Henry IV, after converting to Catholicism to gain entry to the capital, entered the city in 1594 to claim the crown of France. This king made several improvements to the capital during his reign: he completed the construction of Paris's first uncovered, sidewalk-lined bridge, the
Pont Neuf
The Pont Neuf (, "New Bridge") is the oldest standing bridge across the river Seine in Paris, France. It stands by the western (downstream) point of the Île de la Cité, the island in the middle of the river that was, between 250 and 225 BC ...
, built a Louvre extension connecting it to the
Tuileries Palace
The Tuileries Palace (french: Palais des Tuileries, ) was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine, directly in front of the Louvre. It was the usual Parisian residence of most French monarchs, f ...
, and created the first Paris residential square, the Place Royale, now
Place des Vosges
The Place des Vosges (), originally Place Royale, is the oldest planned square in Paris, France.
It is located in the ''Marais'' district, and it straddles the dividing-line between the 3rd and 4th arrondissements of Paris. It was a fashionabl ...
. In spite of Henry IV's efforts to improve city circulation, the narrowness of Paris's streets was a contributing factor in his assassination near
Les Halles marketplace in 1610.
During the 17th century,
Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of
Louis XIII
Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown ...
, was determined to make Paris the most beautiful city in Europe. He built five new bridges, a new chapel for the
College of Sorbonne
The College of Sorbonne (french: Collège de Sorbonne) was a theological college of the University of Paris, founded in 1253 (confirmed in 1257) by Robert de Sorbon (1201–1274), after whom it was named.
With the rest of the Paris colleges, ...
, and a palace for himself, the
Palais-Cardinal, which he bequeathed to Louis XIII. After Richelieu's death in 1642, it was renamed the
Palais-Royal.
![Plan de Paris en 1657](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Plan_de_Paris_en_1657.JPG)
Due to the Parisian uprisings during the
Fronde
The Fronde () was a series of civil wars in France between 1648 and 1653, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. King Louis XIV confronted the combined opposition of the princes, the nobility, the law cour ...
civil war,
Louis XIV
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of Ver ...
moved his court to a new palace,
Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, ...
, in 1682. Although no longer the capital of France, arts and sciences in the city flourished with the
Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française () or Théâtre-Français () is one of the few state theatres in France. Founded in 1680, it is the oldest active theatre company in the world. Established as a French state-controlled entity in 1995, it is the only state ...
, the Academy of Painting, and the
French Academy of Sciences. To demonstrate that the city was safe from attack, the king had the
city walls demolished and replaced with tree-lined boulevards that would become the ''
Grands Boulevards
The Boulevards of Paris are boulevards which form an important part of the urban landscape of Paris. The boulevards were constructed in several phases by central government initiative as infrastructure improvements, but are very much associated w ...
'' of today. Other marks of his reign were the
Collège des Quatre-Nations
The Collège des Quatre-Nations ("College of the Four Nations"), also known as the Collège Mazarin after its founder, was one of the colleges of the historic University of Paris. It was founded through a bequest by the Cardinal Mazarin. At his d ...
, the
Place Vendôme
The Place Vendôme (), earlier known as Place Louis-le-Grand, and also as Place Internationale, is a square in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France, located to the north of the Tuileries Gardens and east of the Église de la Madeleine. It i ...
, the
Place des Victoires
The Place des Victoires is a circular ''place'' in Paris, located a short distance northeast from the Palais Royal and straddling the border between the 1st and the 2nd arrondissements. The Place des Victoires is at the confluence of six streets ...
, and
Les Invalides.
18th and 19th centuries
Paris grew in population from about 400,000 in 1640 to 650,000 in 1780. A new boulevard, the
Champs-Élysées
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées (, ; ) is an avenue in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, long and wide, running between the Place de la Concorde in the east and the Place Charles de Gaulle in the west, where the Arc de Triomphe is l ...
, extended the city west to
Étoile, while the working-class neighbourhood of the
Faubourg Saint-Antoine
The Faubourg Saint-Antoine was one of the traditional suburbs of Paris, France.
It grew up to the east of the Bastille around the abbey of Saint-Antoine-des-Champs, and ran along the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine.
Location
The Faubourg Saint-An ...
on the eastern site of the city grew more and more crowded with poor migrant workers from other regions of France.
![Pantheon 2, Paris May 11, 2013](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Pantheon_2%2C_Paris_May_11%2C_2013.jpg)
Paris was the centre of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity known as the
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
.
Diderot and
d'Alembert
Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert (; ; 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was, together with Denis Diderot, a co-editor of the '' Encyclopé ...
published their ''
Encyclopédie
''Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers'' (English: ''Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts''), better known as ''Encyclopédie'', was a general encyclopedia publis ...
'' in 1751, and the
Montgolfier Brothers
The Montgolfier brothers – Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (; 26 August 1740 – 26 June 1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (; 6 January 1745 – 2 August 1799) – were aviation pioneers, balloonists and paper manufacturers from the commune A ...
launched the first manned flight in a hot-air balloon on 21 November 1783, from the gardens of the
Château de la Muette
The Château de la Muette () is a château located on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, France, near the Porte de la Muette.
Three châteaux have been located on the site since a hunting lodge was transformed into the first château for ...
. Paris was the financial capital of continental Europe, the primary European centre of book publishing and fashion and the manufacture of fine furniture and luxury goods.
In the summer of 1789, Paris became the centre stage for the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
. On 14 July, a mob seized the arsenal at the
Invalides
The Hôtel des Invalides ( en, "house of invalids"), commonly called Les Invalides (), is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as ...
, acquiring thousands of guns, and
stormed the Bastille, a symbol of royal authority. The first independent
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended ...
, or city council, met in the ''Hôtel de Ville'' and, on 15 July, elected a
Mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...
, the astronomer
Jean Sylvain Bailly
Jean Sylvain Bailly (; 15 September 1736 – 12 November 1793) was a French astronomer, mathematician, freemason, and political leader of the early part of the French Revolution. He presided over the Tennis Court Oath, served as the mayor of Pa ...
.
Louis XVI
Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...
and the royal family
were brought to Paris and made prisoners within the Tuileries Palace. In 1793, as the revolution turned more and more radical, the king, queen, and the mayor were guillotined (executed) in the
Reign of Terror, along with more than 16,000 others throughout France. The property of the aristocracy and the church was
nationalised, and the city's churches were closed, sold or demolished. A succession of revolutionary factions ruled Paris until
9 November 1799 (''coup d'état du 18 brumaire''), when
Napoléon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
seized power as First Consul.
The population of Paris had dropped by 100,000 during the Revolution, but between 1799 and 1815, it surged with 160,000 new residents, reaching 660,000.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...
replaced the elected government of Paris with a prefect reporting only to him. He began erecting monuments to military glory, including the
Arc de Triomphe, and improved the neglected infrastructure of the city with new fountains, the
Canal de l'Ourcq
The Canal de l'Ourcq is a long canal in the Île-de-France region (greater Paris) with 10 locks. It was built at a width of but was enlarged to 3.7 m (12 ft), which permitted use by more pleasure boats. The canal begins at Port-au ...
,
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery (french: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise ; formerly , "East Cemetery") is the largest cemetery in Paris, France (). With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world. Notable figure ...
and the city's first metal bridge, the
Pont des Arts
The Pont des Arts or Passerelle des Arts is a pedestrian bridge in Paris which crosses the River Seine. It links the Institut de France and the central square (''cour carrée'') of the Palais du Louvre, (which had been termed the "Palais des Ar ...
.
During the
Restoration
Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to:
* Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage
** Audio restoration
** Film restoration
** Image restoration
** Textile restoration
* Restoration ecology
...
, the bridges and squares of Paris were returned to their pre-Revolution names; the
July Revolution
The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution (french: révolution de Juillet), Second French Revolution, or ("Three Glorious ays), was a second French Revolution after the first in 1789. It led to the overthrow of King ...
in 1830 (commemorated by the
July Column
The July Column (french: Colonne de Juillet) is a monumental column in Paris commemorating the Revolution of 1830. It stands in the center of the Place de la Bastille and celebrates the — the 'three glorious' days of 27–29 July 1830 tha ...
on the
Place de la Bastille
The Place de la Bastille is a square in Paris where the Bastille prison once stood, until the storming of the Bastille and its subsequent physical destruction between 14 July 1789 and 14 July 1790 during the French Revolution. No vestige of the ...
) brought a constitutional monarch,
Louis Philippe I
Louis Philippe (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850) was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, and the penultimate monarch of France.
As Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres, he distinguished himself commanding troops during the Revolutionary Wa ...
, to power. The first railway line to Paris opened in 1837, beginning a new period of massive migration from the
provinces
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
to the city. Louis-Philippe was overthrown by a
popular uprising
Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It refers to the open resistance against the orders of an established authority.
A rebellion originates from a sentiment of indignation and disapproval of a situation and ...
in the streets of Paris in 1848. His successor,
Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
, alongside the newly appointed prefect of the Seine,
Georges-Eugène Haussmann
Georges-Eugène Haussmann, commonly known as Baron Haussmann (; 27 March 180911 January 1891), was a French official who served as prefect of Seine (1853–1870), chosen by Emperor Napoleon III to carry out a massive urban renewal programme of n ...
, launched a gigantic public works project to build wide new boulevards, a new opera house, a central market, new aqueducts, sewers and parks, including the
Bois de Boulogne
The Bois de Boulogne (, "Boulogne woodland") is a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. The land was ceded to the city of Paris by t ...
and
Bois de Vincennes
The Bois de Vincennes (), located on the eastern edge of Paris, is the largest public park in the city. It was created between 1855 and 1866 by Emperor Napoleon III.
The park is next to the Château de Vincennes, a former residence of the King ...
. In 1860, Napoleon III also annexed the surrounding towns and created eight new arrondissements, expanding Paris to its current limits.
During the
Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), Paris was besieged by the
Prussian Army. After months of blockade, hunger, and then bombardment by the Prussians, the city was forced to surrender on 28 January 1871. On 28 March, a revolutionary government called the
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended ...
seized power in Paris. The Commune held power for two months, until it was harshly suppressed by the French army during the "
Bloody Week
The ''semaine sanglante'' ("") was a weeklong battle in Paris from 21 to 28 May 1871, during which the French Army recaptured the city from the Paris Commune. This was the final battle of the Paris Commune.
Following the Treaty of Frankfurt ...
" at the end of May 1871.
Late in the 19th century, Paris hosted two major international expositions: the
1889 Universal Exposition, was held to mark the centennial of the French Revolution and featured the new Eiffel Tower; and the
1900 Universal Exposition, which gave Paris the
Pont Alexandre III
The Pont Alexandre III is a deck arch bridge that spans the Seine in Paris. It connects the Champs-Élysées quarter with those of the Invalides and Eiffel Tower. The bridge is widely regarded as the most ornate, extravagant bridge in the cit ...
, the
Grand Palais, the
Petit Palais
The Petit Palais (; en, Small Palace) is an art museum in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France.
Built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle ("universal exhibition"), it now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts (''Musée des beaux-arts ...
and the first
Paris Métro
The Paris Métro (french: Métro de Paris ; short for Métropolitain ) is a rapid transit system in the Paris metropolitan area, France. A symbol of the city, it is known for its density within the capital's territorial limits, uniform architec ...
line. Paris became the laboratory of
Naturalism (
Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also , ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of ...
) and
Symbolism
Symbolism or symbolist may refer to:
Arts
* Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism
** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries
** Russian sym ...
(
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited ...
and
Paul Verlaine
Paul-Marie Verlaine (; ; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the '' fin de siècle'' in international and ...
), and of
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
in art (
Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...
,
Manet
A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points ...
,
Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...
,
Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Re ...
).
20th and 21st centuries
By 1901, the population of Paris had grown to about 2,715,000. At the beginning of the century, artists from around the world including
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
,
Modigliani, and
Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...
made Paris their home. It was the birthplace of
Fauvism,
Cubism and
abstract art, and authors such as
Marcel Proust were exploring new approaches to literature.
During the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, Paris sometimes found itself on the front line; 600 to 1,000 Paris taxis played a small but highly important symbolic role in transporting 6,000 soldiers to the front line at the
First Battle of the Marne
The First Battle of the Marne was a battle of the First World War fought from 5 to 12 September 1914. It was fought in a collection of skirmishes around the Marne River Valley. It resulted in an Entente victory against the German armies in the ...
. The city was also bombed by
Zeppelin
A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...
s and shelled by German
long-range guns. In the years after the war, known as ''
Les Années Folles'', Paris continued to be a mecca for writers, musicians and artists from around the world, including
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...
,
Igor Stravinsky,
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
,
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted Fran ...
,
Eva Kotchever,
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical ref ...
,
Anaïs Nin,
Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet (May 14, 1897 – May 14, 1959) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. He was one of the first important soloists in jazz, and first recorded several months before trumpeter Louis Armstrong. His erratic tempe ...
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
and the
surrealist
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in ...
.
In the years after the
peace conference
A peace conference is a diplomatic meeting where representatives of certain states, armies, or other warring parties converge to end hostilities and sign a peace treaty.
Significant international peace conferences in the past include the follo ...
, the city was also home to growing numbers of students and activists from
French colonies
From the 16th to the 17th centuries, the First French colonial empire stretched from a total area at its peak in 1680 to over , the second largest empire in the world at the time behind only the Spanish Empire. During the 19th and 20th centuri ...
and other Asian and African countries, who later became leaders of their countries, such as
Ho Chi Minh
(: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as (' Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), (' Old father of the people') and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as P ...
,
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai (; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman and military officer who served as the first premier of the People's Republic of China from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Ma ...
and
Léopold Sédar Senghor
Léopold Sédar Senghor (; ; 9 October 1906 – 20 December 2001) was a Senegalese poet, politician and cultural theorist who was the first president of Senegal (1960–80).
Ideologically an African socialist, he was the major theoretician o ...
.
![The Liberation of Paris, 25 - 26 August 1944 HU66477](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/The_Liberation_of_Paris%2C_25_-_26_August_1944_HU66477.jpg)
On 14 June 1940, the German army marched into Paris, which had been declared an "
open city
In war, an open city is a settlement which has announced it has abandoned all defensive efforts, generally in the event of the imminent capture of the city to avoid destruction. Once a city has declared itself open the opposing military will be ...
". On 16–17 July 1942, following German orders, the French police and gendarmes arrested 12,884 Jews, including 4,115 children, and confined them during five days at the
''Vel d'Hiv'' (''Vélodrome d'Hiver''), from which they were transported by train to the extermination camp at
Auschwitz. None of the children came back. On 25 August 1944, the city was liberated by the
French 2nd Armoured Division
The French 2nd Armored Division (french: link=no, 2e Division Blindée, 2e DB), commanded by General Philippe Leclerc, fought during the final phases of World War II in the Western Front for the liberation of France. The division was formed arou ...
and the
4th Infantry Division of the
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...
. General
Charles de Gaulle led a huge and emotional crowd down the Champs Élysées towards Notre Dame de Paris, and made a rousing speech from the
Hôtel de Ville.
In the 1950s and the 1960s, Paris became one front of the
Algerian War for independence; in August 1961, the pro-independence
FLN targeted and killed 11 Paris policemen, leading to the imposition of a curfew on Muslims of Algeria (who, at that time, were French citizens). On 17 October 1961, an unauthorised but peaceful protest demonstration of Algerians against the curfew led to
violent confrontations between the police and demonstrators, in which at least 40 people were killed, including some thrown into the Seine. The anti-independence
Organisation armée secrète
The ''Organisation Armée Secrète'' (OAS, "Secret Armed Organisation") was a far-right French dissident paramilitary organisation during the Algerian War. The OAS carried out terrorist attacks, including bombings and assassinations, in an atte ...
(OAS), for their part, carried out a series of bombings in Paris throughout 1961 and 1962.
In May 1968, protesting students occupied the
Sorbonne
Sorbonne may refer to:
* Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities.
*the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970)
*one of its components or linked institution, ...
and put up barricades in the
Latin Quarter
The Latin Quarter of Paris (french: Quartier latin, ) is an area in the 5th and the 6th arrondissements of Paris. It is situated on the left bank of the Seine, around the Sorbonne.
Known for its student life, lively atmosphere, and bistro ...
. Thousands of Parisian blue-collar workers joined the students, and the movement grew into a two-week general strike. Supporters of the government won the June elections by a large majority. The
May 1968 events in France
Beginning in May 1968, a period of civil unrest occurred throughout France, lasting some seven weeks and punctuated by demonstrations, general strikes, as well as the occupation of universities and factories. At the height of events, which ...
resulted in the break-up of the University of Paris into 13 independent campuses. In 1975, the National Assembly changed the status of Paris to that of other French cities and, on 25 March 1977,
Jacques Chirac became the first elected mayor of Paris since 1793. The
Tour Maine-Montparnasse, the tallest building in the city at 57 storeys and high, was built between 1969 and 1973. It was highly controversial, and it remains the only building in the centre of the city over 32 storeys high. The population of Paris dropped from 2,850,000 in 1954 to 2,152,000 in 1990, as middle-class families moved to the suburbs. A suburban railway network, the
RER (Réseau Express Régional), was built to complement the Métro; the
Périphérique expressway encircling the city, was completed in 1973.
Most of the postwar presidents of the
Fifth Republic wanted to leave their own monuments in Paris; President
Georges Pompidou
Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou ( , ; 5 July 19112 April 1974) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1969 until his death in 1974. He previously was Prime Minister of France of President Charles de Gaulle from 1962 to 196 ...
started the
Centre Georges Pompidou (1977),
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
Valéry René Marie Georges Giscard d'Estaing (, , ; 2 February 19262 December 2020), also known as Giscard or VGE, was a French politician who served as President of France from 1974 to 1981.
After serving as Minister of Finance under prime ...
began the
Musée d'Orsay (1986); President
François Mitterrand, in power for 14 years, had the
Opéra Bastille
The Opéra Bastille (, "Bastille Opera House") is a modern opera house in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, France. Inaugurated in 1989 as part of President François Mitterrand's '' Grands Travaux'', it became the main facility of the Paris Nat ...
built (1985–1989), the new site of the ''
Bibliothèque nationale de France'' (1996), the
Arche de la Défense
La Grande Arche de la Défense (; "The Great Arch of the Defense"), originally called La Grande Arche de la Fraternité (; "Fraternity"), is a monument and building in the business district of La Défense and in the commune of Puteaux, to the we ...
(1985–1989) in
La Défense, as well as the
Louvre Pyramid
The Louvre Pyramid (Pyramide du Louvre) is a large glass and metal structure designed by the Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei. The pyramid is in the main courtyard ( Cour Napoléon) of the Louvre Palace in Paris, surrounded by three small ...
with its underground courtyard (1983–1989);
Jacques Chirac (2006), the
Musée du quai Branly.
![Paris,_France,_September_24,_2016_SkySat](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Paris%2C_France%2C_September_24%2C_2016_SkySat.jpg)
In the early 21st century, the population of Paris began to increase slowly again, as more young people moved into the city. It reached 2.25 million in 2011. In March 2001,
Bertrand Delanoë
Bertrand Delanoë (; born 30 May 1950) is a French retired politician who served as Mayor of Paris from 2001 to 2014. A member of the Socialist Party (PS), he previously served in the National Assembly from 1981 to 1986 and Senate from 1995 unt ...
became the first Socialist Mayor of Paris. In 2007, in an effort to reduce car traffic in the city, he introduced the
Vélib'
is a large-scale public bicycle sharing system in Paris, France. Launched on 15 July 2007, the system encompassed around 14,500 bicycles and 1,400 bicycle stations, located across Paris and in some surrounding municipalities, with an average d ...
, a system which rents bicycles for the use of local residents and visitors. Bertrand Delanoë also transformed a section of the highway along the Left Bank of the Seine into an urban promenade and park, the
Promenade des Berges de la Seine
The Promenade des Berges de la Seine is a public park and promenade located along the left bank of the Seine river in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, between the Pont de l'Alma and the Musée d'Orsay. The promenade, created on the former highway ...
, which he inaugurated in June 2013.
In 2007, President
Nicolas Sarkozy launched the
Grand Paris
The Métropole du Grand Paris (; "Metropolis of Greater Paris"),There is no official or widely-used English translation yet. also known as Grand Paris or Greater Paris, is a ''métropole'' covering the City of Paris and its nearest surrounding su ...
project, to integrate Paris more closely with the towns in the region around it. After many modifications, the new area, named the
Metropolis of Grand Paris, with a population of 6.7 million, was created on 1 January 2016.
In 2011, the City of Paris and the national government approved the plans for the
Grand Paris Express
Grand Paris Express is a group of new rapid transit lines being built in the Île-de-France region of France. The project comprises four new lines for Paris Métro, plus extensions of existing Lines 11 and 14. A total of of new track and 68 n ...
, totalling of automated metro lines to connect Paris, the innermost three departments around Paris, airports and
high-speed rail (TGV) stations, at an estimated cost of €35 billion.
The system is scheduled to be completed by 2030.
![Place de la République, 18h50, une foule silencieuse](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Place_de_la_R%C3%A9publique%2C_18h50%2C_une_foule_silencieuse.jpg)
In January 2015,
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ( ar-at, تنظيم القاعدة في جزيرة العرب, Tanẓīm al-Qā‘idah fī Jazīrat al-‘Arab, lit=Organization of the Base in the Arabian Peninsula or , ''Tanẓīm Qā‘idat al-Jihād fī Jaz ...
claimed
attacks across the Paris region.
1.5 million people marched in Paris in a show of solidarity against terrorism and in support of freedom of speech. In November of the same year,
terrorist attacks
The following is a list of terrorist incidents that have not been carried out by a state or its forces (see state terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism). Assassinations are listed at List of assassinated people.
Definitions of terrori ...
, claimed by ISIL, killed 130 people and injured more than 350.
Geography
Location
![Paris by Sentinel-2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Paris_by_Sentinel-2.jpg)
Paris is located in northern central France, in a north-bending arc of the river
Seine whose crest includes two islands, the
Île Saint-Louis
Île Saint-Louis (), in size, is one of two natural islands in the Seine river, in Paris, France (the other natural island is the Île de la Cité, where Notre-Dame de Paris is located). Île Saint-Louis is connected to the rest of Paris by ...
and the larger
Île de la Cité
Île de la Cité (; English: City Island) is an island in the river Seine in the center of Paris. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of the Roman governor. In 508, Clovis I, the first King of the Franks, established his palace ...
, which form the oldest part of the city. The river's mouth on the
English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...
(''La Manche'') is about downstream from the city. The city is spread widely on both banks of the river.
Overall, the city is relatively flat, and the lowest point is
above sea level. Paris has several prominent hills, the highest of which is
Montmartre
Montmartre ( , ) is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Right Bank. The historic district established by the City of Paris in 1995 is bordered by Rue Ca ...
at .
Excluding the outlying parks of
Bois de Boulogne
The Bois de Boulogne (, "Boulogne woodland") is a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. The land was ceded to the city of Paris by t ...
and
Bois de Vincennes
The Bois de Vincennes (), located on the eastern edge of Paris, is the largest public park in the city. It was created between 1855 and 1866 by Emperor Napoleon III.
The park is next to the Château de Vincennes, a former residence of the King ...
, Paris covers an oval measuring about in area, enclosed by the ring road, the
Boulevard Périphérique
The Boulevard Périphérique (), often called the Périph', is a controlled-access dual-carriageway ring road in Paris, France. With a few exceptions (see '' Structure and Layout''), it is situated along Paris's administrative limit.
The sp ...
. The city's last major annexation of outlying territories in 1860 not only gave it its modern form but also created the 20 clockwise-spiralling arrondissements (municipal boroughs). From the 1860 area of , the city limits were expanded marginally to in the 1920s. In 1929, the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes forest parks were officially annexed to the city, bringing its area to about . The metropolitan area of the city is .
[
Measured from the 'point zero' in front of its ]Notre-Dame cathedral
Notre-Dame de Paris (; meaning "Our Lady of Paris"), referred to simply as Notre-Dame, is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité (an island in the Seine River), in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. The cathedral, dedicated to the ...
, Paris by road is southeast of London, south of Calais, southwest of Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
, north of Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...
, northeast of Nantes, and southeast of Rouen.
Climate
Paris has a typical Western European oceanic climate (Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...
: ''Cfb''), which is affected by the North Atlantic Current
The North Atlantic Current (NAC), also known as North Atlantic Drift and North Atlantic Sea Movement, is a powerful warm western boundary current within the Atlantic Ocean that extends the Gulf Stream northeastward.
The NAC originates from where ...
. The overall climate throughout the year is mild and moderately wet. Summer days are usually warm and pleasant with average temperatures between , and a fair amount of sunshine. Each year, however, there are a few days when the temperature rises above . Longer periods of more intense heat sometimes occur, such as the heat wave of 2003 when temperatures exceeded for weeks, reached on some days and rarely cooled down at night. Spring and autumn have, on average, mild days and fresh nights but are changing and unstable. Surprisingly warm or cool weather occurs frequently in both seasons. In winter, sunshine is scarce; days are cool, and nights are cold but generally above freezing with low temperatures around . Light night frosts are however quite common, but the temperature seldom dips below . Snow falls every year, but rarely stays on the ground. The city sometimes sees light snow or flurries with or without accumulation.
Paris has an average annual precipitation of , and experiences light rainfall distributed evenly throughout the year. However, the city is known for intermittent, abrupt, heavy showers. The highest recorded temperature was on 25 July 2019, and the lowest was on 10 December 1879.
Administration
City government
For almost all of its long history, except for a few brief periods, Paris was governed directly by representatives of the king, emperor, or president of France. The city was not granted municipal autonomy by the National Assembly until 1974. For all but 14 months from 1794 to 1977, Paris was the only French commune without a mayor, and thus had less autonomy than the smallest village. For most of the time from 1800 to 1977 (except briefly in 1848 and 1870–71), it was directly controlled by the departmental prefect (the prefect of the Seine until 1968, and the prefect of Paris from 1968 to 1977).
The first modern elected mayor of Paris was Jacques Chirac, elected 20 March 1977, becoming the city's first mayor since 1871 and only the fourth since 1794. The current mayor is Anne Hidalgo
Ana María "Anne" Hidalgo Aleu (, ; born 1959) is a Spanish-French politician who has served as Mayor of Paris since 2014, the first woman to hold the office. She is a member of the Socialist Party.
Hidalgo served as First Deputy Mayor of Paris ...
, a socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
, first elected 5 April 2014 and re-elected 28 June 2020.
The mayor of Paris is elected indirectly by Paris voters; the voters of each of the city's 20 arrondissements elect members to the ''Conseil de Paris
The Council of Paris ( French: ''Conseil de Paris'') is the deliberative body responsible for governing Paris, the capital of France. It possesses both the powers of a municipal council (''conseil municipal'') and those of a departmental counc ...
'' (Council of Paris), which subsequently elects the mayor. The council is composed of 163 members, with each arrondissement allocated a number of seats dependent upon its population, from 10 members for each of the least-populated arrondissements (1st through 9th) to 34 members for the most populated (the 15th). The council is elected using closed list proportional representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...
in a two-round system
The two-round system (TRS), also known as runoff voting, second ballot, or ballotage, is a voting method used to elect a single candidate, where voters cast a single vote for their preferred candidate. It generally ensures a majoritarian resu ...
. Party lists winning an absolute majority
A supermajority, supra-majority, qualified majority, or special majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority r ...
in the first round – or at least a plurality in the second round – automatically win half the seats of an arrondissement. The remaining half of seats are distributed proportionally to all lists which win at least 5% of the vote using the highest averages method
A highest-averages method, also called a divisor method, is a class of methods for allocating seats in a parliament among agents such as political parties or federal states. A divisor method is an iterative method: at each iteration, the number ...
. This ensures that the winning party or coalition always wins a majority of the seats, even if they don't win an absolute majority of the vote.
Once elected, the council plays a largely passive role in the city government, primarily because it meets only once a month. The council is divided between a coalition of the left of 91 members, including the socialists, communists, greens, and extreme left; and 71 members for the centre-right, plus a few members from smaller parties.
Each of Paris's 20 arrondissements has its own town hall and a directly elected council (''conseil d'arrondissement''), which, in turn, elects an arrondissement mayor. The council of each arrondissement is composed of members of the Conseil de Paris and also members who serve only on the council of the arrondissement. The number of deputy mayors in each arrondissement varies depending upon its population. There are a total of 20 arrondissement mayors and 120 deputy mayors.
The budget of the city for 2018 is 9.5 billion Euros, with an expected deficit of 5.5 billion Euros. 7.9 billion Euros are designated for city administration, and 1.7 billion Euros for investment. The number of city employees increased from 40,000 in 2001 to 55,000 in 2018. The largest part of the investment budget is earmarked for public housing (262 million Euros) and for real estate (142 million Euros).
Métropole du Grand Paris
The Métropole du Grand Paris
The Métropole du Grand Paris (; "Metropolis of Greater Paris"),There is no official or widely-used English translation yet. also known as Grand Paris or Greater Paris, is a ''métropole'' covering the City of Paris and its nearest surrounding su ...
, or simply Grand Paris
The Métropole du Grand Paris (; "Metropolis of Greater Paris"),There is no official or widely-used English translation yet. also known as Grand Paris or Greater Paris, is a ''métropole'' covering the City of Paris and its nearest surrounding su ...
, formally came into existence on 1 January 2016. It is an administrative structure for co-operation between the City of Paris and its nearest suburbs. It includes the City of Paris, plus the communes of the three departments of the inner suburbs ( Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis
() is a department of France located in the Grand Paris metropolis in the region. In French, it is often referred to colloquially as ' or ' ("ninety-three" or "nine three"), after its official administrative number, 93. Its prefecture is Bobig ...
and Val-de-Marne
Val-de-Marne (, "Vale of the Marne") is a department of France located in the Île-de-France region. Named after the river Marne, it is situated in the Grand Paris metropolis to the southeast of the City of Paris. In 2019, Val-de-Marne had a p ...
), plus seven communes in the outer suburbs, including Argenteuil
Argenteuil () is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. Argenteuil is a sub-prefecture of the Val-d'Oise department, the seat of the arrondissement of Argenteuil.
Argenteuil is the sec ...
in Val d'Oise
Val-d'Oise (, "Vale of the Oise") is a department in the Île-de-France region, Northern France. It was created in 1968 following the split of the Seine-et-Oise department. In 2019, Val-d'Oise had a population of 1,249,674. and Paray-Vieille-Poste in Essonne, which were added to include the major airports of Paris. The Metropole covers and has a population of 6.945 million persons.
The new structure is administered by a Metropolitan Council of 210 members, not directly elected, but chosen by the councils of the member Communes. By 2020 its basic competencies will include urban planning, housing and protection of the environment. The first president of the metropolitan council, Patrick Ollier, a Republican and the mayor of the town of Rueil-Malmaison, was elected on 22 January 2016. Though the Metropole has a population of nearly seven million people and accounts for 25 percent of the GDP of France, it has a very small budget: just 65 million Euros, compared with eight billion Euros for the City of Paris.
Regional government
The Region of Île de France, including Paris and its surrounding communities, is governed by the Regional Council of Île-de-France, Regional Council, which has its headquarters in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. It is composed of 209 members representing the different communes within the region. On 15 December 2015, a list of candidates of the Union of the Right, a coalition of centrist and right-wing parties, led by Valérie Pécresse, narrowly won the regional election, defeating a coalition of Socialists and ecologists. The Socialists had governed the region for seventeen years. The regional council has 121 members from the Union of the Right, 66 from the Union of the Left and 22 from the extreme right National Front.
National government
As the capital of France, Paris is the seat of France's Government of France, national government. For the executive, the two chief officers each have their own official residences, which also serve as their offices. The President of France, President of the French Republic resides at the Élysée Palace in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, 8th arrondissement, while the Prime Minister of France, Prime Minister's seat is at the Hôtel Matignon in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, 7th arrondissement. Government ministries are located in various parts of the city; many are located in the 7th arrondissement, near the Hôtel Matignon.
Both houses of the French Parliament are located on the Rive Gauche. The upper house, the Senate (France), Senate, meets in the Palais du Luxembourg in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, 6th arrondissement, while the more important lower house, the National Assembly (France), National Assembly, meets in the Palais Bourbon in the 7th arrondissement. The List of presidents of the Senate of France, President of the Senate, the second-highest public official in France (the President of the Republic being the sole superior), resides in the Petit Luxembourg, a smaller palace annexe to the Palais du Luxembourg.
France's highest courts are located in Paris. The Court of Cassation (France), Court of Cassation, the highest court in the judicial order, which reviews criminal and civil cases, is located in the Palais de Justice, Paris, Palais de Justice on the ''Île de la Cité'', while the Council of State (France), Conseil d'État, which provides legal advice to the executive and acts as the highest court in the administrative order, judging litigation against public bodies, is located in the Palais-Royal in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arrondissement. The Constitutional Council of France, Constitutional Council, an advisory body with ultimate authority on the constitutionality of laws and government decrees, also meets in the Montpensier wing of the Palais Royal.
Paris and its region host the headquarters of several international organisations including UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Chamber of Commerce, the Paris Club, the European Space Agency, the International Energy Agency, the ''Organisation internationale de la Francophonie'', the European Union Institute for Security Studies, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (french: Bureau international des poids et mesures, BIPM) is an intergovernmental organisation, through which its 59 member-states act together on measurement standards in four areas: chemistry ...
, the Bureau of International Expositions, International Exhibition Bureau, and the International Federation for Human Rights.
Following the motto "Only Paris is worthy of Rome; only Rome is worthy of Paris"; the only Town twinning, sister city of Paris is Rome, although Paris has partnership agreements with many other cities around the world.
Police force
The security of Paris is mainly the responsibility of the Prefecture of Police of Paris, a subdivision of the Minister of the Interior (France), Ministry of the Interior. It supervises the units of the National Police (France), National Police who patrol the city and the three neighbouring departments. It is also responsible for providing emergency services, including the Paris Fire Brigade. Its headquarters is on Place Louis Lépine on the Île de la Cité
Île de la Cité (; English: City Island) is an island in the river Seine in the center of Paris. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of the Roman governor. In 508, Clovis I, the first King of the Franks, established his palace ...
.
There are 43 800 officers under the prefecture, and a fleet of more than 6,000 vehicles, including police cars, motorcycles, fire trucks, boats and helicopters. The national police has its own special unit for riot control and crowd control and security of public buildings, called the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS), a unit formed in 1944 right after the liberation of France. Vans of CRS agents are frequently seen in the centre of the city when there are demonstrations and public events.
The police are supported by the National Gendarmerie, a branch of the French Armed Forces, though their police operations now are supervised by the Ministry of the Interior. The traditional kepis of the gendarmes were replaced in 2002 with caps, and the force modernised, though they still wear kepis for ceremonial occasions.
Crime in Paris is similar to that in most large cities. Violent crime is relatively rare in the city centre. Political violence is uncommon, though very large demonstrations may occur in Paris and other French cities simultaneously. These demonstrations, usually managed by a strong police presence, can turn confrontational and escalate into violence.
Cityscape
Urbanism and architecture
Paris is one of the few world capitals that has rarely seen destruction by catastrophe or war. For this, even its earliest history is still visible in its streetmap, and centuries of rulers adding their respective architectural marks on the capital has resulted in an accumulated wealth of history-rich monuments and buildings whose beauty played a large part in giving the city the reputation it has today. At its origin, before the Middle Ages, the city was composed of several islands and sandbanks in a bend of the Seine; of those, two remain today: Île Saint-Louis
Île Saint-Louis (), in size, is one of two natural islands in the Seine river, in Paris, France (the other natural island is the Île de la Cité, where Notre-Dame de Paris is located). Île Saint-Louis is connected to the rest of Paris by ...
and the Île de la Cité
Île de la Cité (; English: City Island) is an island in the river Seine in the center of Paris. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of the Roman governor. In 508, Clovis I, the first King of the Franks, established his palace ...
. A third one is the 1827 artificially created Île aux Cygnes.
Modern Paris owes much of its downtown plan and architectural harmony to Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
and his Prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, Baron Haussmann. Between 1853 and 1870 they rebuilt the city centre, created the wide downtown boulevards and squares where the boulevards intersected, imposed standard facades along the boulevards, and required that the facades be built of the distinctive cream-grey "Paris stone". They also built the major parks around the city centre. The high residential population of its city centre also makes it much different from most other western major cities.
Paris's urbanism laws have been under strict control since the early 17th century, particularly where street-front alignment, building height and building distribution is concerned. In recent developments, a 1974–2010 building height limitation of was raised to in central areas and in some of Paris's peripheral quarters, yet for some of the city's more central quarters, even older building-height laws still remain in effect. The Tour Montparnasse was both Paris's and France's tallest building since 1973, but this record has been held by the La Défense quarter Tour First tower in Courbevoie since its 2011 construction.
Parisian examples of historical architectural styles date back more than a millennium, including the Romanesque architecture, Romanesque church of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (1014–1163), the early Gothic Architecture of the Basilica of Saint-Denis
The Basilica of Saint-Denis (french: Basilique royale de Saint-Denis, links=no, now formally known as the ) is a large former medieval abbey church and present cathedral in the commune of Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris. The building ...
(1144), the Notre-Dame de Paris, Notre Dame Cathedral (1163–1345), the Flamboyant Gothic of Saint Chapelle (1239–1248), the Baroque churches of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis (1627–1641) and Les Invalides (1670–1708). The 19th century produced the neoclassical church of La Madeleine, Paris, La Madeleine (1808–1842), the Palais Garnier serving as an opera house (1875), the neo-Byzantine Sacré-Cœur, Paris, Basilica of Sacré-Cœur (1875–1919), as well as the exuberant ''Belle Époque'' modernism of the Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.
Locally nicknamed "' ...
(1889). Striking examples of 20th-century architecture include the Centre Georges Pompidou by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano (1977), the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie by various architects (1986), the Arab World Institute by Jean Nouvel (1987), the Louvre Pyramid
The Louvre Pyramid (Pyramide du Louvre) is a large glass and metal structure designed by the Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei. The pyramid is in the main courtyard ( Cour Napoléon) of the Louvre Palace in Paris, surrounded by three small ...
by I. M. Pei (1989) and the Opéra Bastille
The Opéra Bastille (, "Bastille Opera House") is a modern opera house in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, France. Inaugurated in 1989 as part of President François Mitterrand's '' Grands Travaux'', it became the main facility of the Paris Nat ...
by Carlos Ott (1989). Contemporary architecture includes the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac by Jean Nouvel (2006), the contemporary art museum of the Louis Vuitton Foundation by Frank Gehry (2014) and the new Tribunal de grande instance de Paris by Renzo Piano (2018).
Housing
The most expensive residential streets in Paris in 2018 by average price per square metre were Avenue Montaigne (8th arrondissement), at 22,372 euros per square metre; Place Dauphine (1st arrondissement; 20,373 euros) and the Rue de Furstemberg (6th arrondissement) at 18,839 euros per square metre. The total number of residences in the City of Paris in 2011 was , up from a former high of in 2006. Among these, (85.9 percent) were main residences, (6.8 percent) were secondary residences, and the remaining 7.3 percent were empty (down from 9.2 percent in 2006).
Sixty-two percent of its buildings date from 1949 and before, 20 percent were built between 1949 and 1974, and only 18 percent of the buildings remaining were built after that date. Two-thirds of the city's 1.3 million residences are studio and two-room apartments. Paris averages 1.9 people per residence, a number that has remained constant since the 1980s, but it is much less than Île-de-France's 2.33 person-per-residence average. Only 33 percent of principal residence Parisians own their habitation (against 47 percent for the entire Île-de-France): the major part of the city's population is a rent-paying one. Social or public housing represented 19.9 percent of the city's total residences in 2017. Its distribution varies widely throughout the city, from 2.6 percent of the housing in the wealthy 7th arrondissement, to 24 percent in the 20th arrondissement, 26 percent in the 14th arrondissement and 39.9 percent in the 19th arrondissement, on the poorer southwest and northern edges of the city.
On the night of 8–9 February 2019, during a period of cold weather, a Paris NGO conducted its annual citywide count of homeless persons. They counted 3,641 homeless persons in Paris, of whom twelve percent were women. More than half had been homeless for more than a year. 2,885 were living in the streets or parks, 298 in train and metro stations, and 756 in other forms of temporary shelter. This was an increase of 588 persons since 2018.
Paris and its suburbs
Aside from the 20th-century addition of the Bois de Boulogne, the Bois de Vincennes and the Paris heliport, Paris's administrative limits have remained unchanged since 1860. A greater administrative Seine (department), Seine department had been governing Paris and its suburbs since its creation in 1790, but the rising suburban population had made it difficult to maintain as a unique entity. To address this problem, the parent "District de la région parisienne" ('district of the Paris region') was reorganised into several new departments from 1968: Paris became a department in itself, and the administration of its suburbs was divided between the three new departments surrounding it. The district of the Paris region was renamed "Île-de-France
The Île-de-France (, ; literally "Isle of France") is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France. Centred on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the country and often called the ''Région parisienne'' (; en, Pa ...
" in 1977, but this abbreviated "Paris region" name is still commonly used today to describe the Île-de-France, and as a vague reference to the entire Paris agglomeration. Long-intended measures to unite Paris with its suburbs began on 1 January 2016, when the Métropole du Grand Paris
The Métropole du Grand Paris (; "Metropolis of Greater Paris"),There is no official or widely-used English translation yet. also known as Grand Paris or Greater Paris, is a ''métropole'' covering the City of Paris and its nearest surrounding su ...
came into existence.
Paris's disconnect with its suburbs, its lack of suburban transportation, in particular, became all too apparent with the Paris agglomeration's growth. Paul Delouvrier promised to resolve the Paris-suburbs ''mésentente'' when he became head of the Paris region in 1961: two of his most ambitious projects for the Region were the construction of five suburban "villes nouvelles" ("new cities") and the RER commuter train network. Many other suburban residential districts (''grands ensembles'') were built between the 1960s and 1970s to provide a low-cost solution for a rapidly expanding population: These districts were socially mixed at first, but few residents actually owned their homes (the growing economy made these accessible to the middle classes only from the 1970s). Their poor construction quality and their haphazard insertion into existing urban growth contributed to their desertion by those able to move elsewhere and their repopulation by those with more limited possibilities.
These areas, ''quartiers sensibles'' ("sensitive quarters"), are in northern and eastern Paris, namely around its Goutte d'Or and Belleville, Paris, Belleville neighbourhoods. To the north of the city, they are grouped mainly in the Seine-Saint-Denis
() is a department of France located in the Grand Paris metropolis in the region. In French, it is often referred to colloquially as ' or ' ("ninety-three" or "nine three"), after its official administrative number, 93. Its prefecture is Bobig ...
department (France), department, and to a lesser extreme to the east in the Val-d'Oise department (France), department. Other difficult areas are located in the Seine valley, in Évry (Essonne), Évry et Corbeil-Essonnes (Essonne (département), Essonne), in Les Mureaux, Mureaux, Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines), and scattered among social housing districts created by Delouvrier's 1961 "ville nouvelle" political initiative.
The Paris agglomeration's urban sociology is basically that of 19th-century Paris: its fortuned classes are situated in its west and southwest, and its middle-to-lower classes are in its north and east. The remaining areas are mostly middle-class citizenry dotted with islands of fortuned populations located there due to reasons of historical importance, namely Saint-Maur-des-Fossés to the east and Enghien-les-Bains to the north of Paris.
Demographics
The official estimated population of the City of Paris was 2,165,423 on 1 January 2022, according to the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, INSEE, the official French statistical agency. This was a decline of 11,000 from January 2021, and a drop of 65,000 over six years. Despite the drop, Paris remains the most densely-populated city in Europe, with 252 residents per hectare, not counting parks.[''Le Monde'', 22 January 2019] This drop was attributed partly to a lower birth rate, the departure of middle-class residents and the possible loss of housing in the city due to short-term rentals for tourism.["Paris perd ses habitants, la faute à la démographie et aux... meublés touristiques pour la Ville." ''Le Parisien'', 28 December 2017]
Paris is the fourth largest municipality in the European Union, following Berlin, Madrid and Rome. Eurostat places Paris (6.5 million people) behind London (8 million) and ahead of Berlin (3.5 million), based on the 2012 populations of what Eurostat calls "urban audit core cities".
The population of Paris today is lower than its historical peak of 2.9 million in 1921. The principal reasons were a significant decline in household size, and a dramatic migration of residents to the suburbs between 1962 and 1975. Factors in the migration included de-industrialisation, high rent, the gentrification of many inner quarters, the transformation of living space into offices, and greater affluence among working families. The city's population loss came to a temporary halt at the beginning of the 21st century; the population increased from 2,125,246 in 1999 to 2,240,621 in 2012, before declining again slightly in 2017, 2018, and again in 2021.
Paris is the core of a built-up area that extends well beyond its limits: commonly referred to as the ''agglomération Parisienne'', and statistically as a ''unité urbaine'' (a measure of urban area), the Paris agglomeration's population of 10,785,092 in 2017 made it the List of urban areas in the European Union, largest urban area in the European Union. City-influenced commuter activity reaches well beyond even this in a statistical Paris Metropolitan Area, ''aire d'attraction'' de Paris ("functional area", a statistical method comparable to a metropolitan area), that had a population of 13,024,518 in 2017, 19.6% of the population of France, and the List of metropolitan areas in Europe, largest metropolitan area in the Eurozone.[
According to Eurostat, the EU statistical agency, in 2012 the Commune of Paris was the most densely populated city in the European Union, with 21,616 people per square kilometre within the city limits (the NUTS-3 statistical area), ahead of Inner London West, which had 10,374 people per square kilometre. According to the same census, three departments bordering Paris, Hauts-de-Seine, ]Seine-Saint-Denis
() is a department of France located in the Grand Paris metropolis in the region. In French, it is often referred to colloquially as ' or ' ("ninety-three" or "nine three"), after its official administrative number, 93. Its prefecture is Bobig ...
and Val-de-Marne
Val-de-Marne (, "Vale of the Marne") is a department of France located in the Île-de-France region. Named after the river Marne, it is situated in the Grand Paris metropolis to the southeast of the City of Paris. In 2019, Val-de-Marne had a p ...
, had population densities of over 10,000 people per square kilometre, ranking among the 10 most densely populated areas of the EU.
Migration
According to the 2012 French census, 586,163 residents of the City of Paris, or 26.2 percent, and 2,782,834 residents of the Paris Region (Île-de-France), or 23.4 percent, were born outside of metropolitan France (the last figure up from 22.4% at the 2007 census). 26,700 of these in the City of Paris and 210,159 in the Paris Region were people born in Overseas France (more than two-thirds of whom in the French West Indies) and are therefore not counted as immigrants since they were legally French citizens at birth.
A further 103,648 in the City of Paris and in 412,114 in the Paris Region were born in foreign countries with French citizenship at birth. This concerns in particular the many Pied-Noir, Christians and Maghrebi Jews, Jews from North Africa who moved to France and Paris after the times of independence and are not counted as immigrants due to their being born French citizens. The remaining group, people born in foreign countries with no French citizenship at birth, are those defined as immigrants under French law. According to the 2012 census, 135,853 residents of the City of Paris were immigrants from Europe, 112,369 were immigrants from the Maghreb, 70,852 from sub-Saharan Africa and Egypt, 5,059 from Turkey, 91,297 from Asia (outside Turkey), 38,858 from the Americas, and 1,365 from the Oceania, South Pacific. Note that the immigrants from the Americas and the South Pacific in Paris are vastly outnumbered by migrants from French overseas regions and territories located in these regions of the world.
In the Paris Region, 590,504 residents were immigrants from Europe, 627,078 were immigrants from the Maghreb, 435,339 from sub-Saharan Africa and Egypt, 69,338 from Turkey, 322,330 from Asia (outside Turkey), 113,363 from the Americas, and 2,261 from the Oceania, South Pacific. These last two groups of immigrants are again vastly outnumbered by migrants from French overseas regions and territories located in the Americas and the South Pacific.
In 2012, there were 8,810 British citizens and 10,019 United States citizens living in the City of Paris (Ville de Paris) and 20,466 British citizens and 16,408 United States citizens living in the entire Paris Region (Île-de-France
The Île-de-France (, ; literally "Isle of France") is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France. Centred on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the country and often called the ''Région parisienne'' (; en, Pa ...
).
Religion
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Paris was the largest Catholic Church, Catholic city in the world. French census data does not contain information about religious affiliation. According to a 2011 survey by the Institut français d'opinion publique (IFOP), a French public opinion research organisation, 61 percent of residents of the Paris Region (Île-de-France) identified themselves as Catholic Church, Roman Catholic. In the same survey, 7 percent of residents identified themselves as Muslims, 4 percent as Protestants, 2 percent as Jewish and 25 percent as without religion.
According to the INSEE, between 4 and 5 million French residents were born or had at least one parent born in a predominantly Muslim country, particularly Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. An IFOP survey in 2008 reported that, of immigrants from these predominantly Muslim countries, 25 percent went to the mosque regularly; 41 percent practised the religion, and 34 percent were believers but did not practice the religion. In 2012 and 2013, it was estimated that there were almost 500,000 Muslims in the City of Paris, 1.5 million Muslims in the Île-de-France region and 4 to 5 million Muslims in France.
The Jewish population of the Paris Region was estimated in 2014 to be 282,000, the largest concentration of Jews in the world outside of Israel and the United States.
International organisations
The UNESCO, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has had its headquarters in Paris since November 1958. Paris is also the home of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Paris hosts the headquarters of the European Space Agency, the International Energy Agency, European Securities and Markets Authority
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) is an independent European Union Authority located in Paris.
ESMA replaced the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) on 1 January 2011. It is one of the three new European Sup ...
and, since 2019, the European Banking Authority
The European Banking Authority (EBA) is a regulatory agency of the European Union headquartered in Paris. Its activities include conducting stress tests on European banks to increase transparency in the European financial system and identifying ...
.
Economy
The economy of the City of Paris is based largely on services and commerce; of the 390,480 enterprises in the city, 80.6 percent are engaged in commerce, transportation, and diverse services, 6.5 percent in construction, and just 3.8 percent in industry. The story is similar in the Paris Region (Île-de-France): 76.7 percent of enterprises are engaged in commerce and services, and 3.4 percent in industry.
At the 2012 census, 59.5% of jobs in the Paris Region were in market services (12.0% in wholesale and retail trade, 9.7% in professional, scientific, and technical services, 6.5% in information and communication, 6.5% in transportation and warehousing, 5.9% in finance and insurance, 5.8% in administrative and support services, 4.6% in accommodation and food services, and 8.5% in various other market services), 26.9% in non-market services (10.4% in human health and social work activities, 9.6% in public administration and defence, and 6.9% in education), 8.2% in manufacturing and utilities (6.6% in manufacturing and 1.5% in utilities), 5.2% in construction, and 0.2% in agriculture.
The Paris Region had 5.4 million salaried employees in 2010, of whom 2.2 million were concentrated in 39 ''pôles d'emplois'' or business districts. The largest of these, in terms of number of employees, is known in French as the QCA, or ''quartier central des affaires''; it is in the western part of the City of Paris, in the 2nd, 8th, 9th, 16th, and 18th arrondissements. In 2010, it was the workplace of 500,000 salaried employees, about 30 percent of the salaried employees in Paris and 10 percent of those in the Île-de-France. The largest sectors of activity in the central business district were finance and insurance (16 percent of employees in the district) and business services (15 percent). The district also includes a large concentration of department stores, shopping areas, hotels and restaurants, as well a government offices and ministries.
The second-largest business district in terms of employment is La Défense, just west of the city, where many companies installed their offices in the 1990s. In 2010, it was the workplace of 144,600 employees, of whom 38 percent worked in finance and insurance, 16 percent in business support services. Two other important districts, Neuilly-sur-Seine and Levallois-Perret, are extensions of the Paris business district and of La Défense. Another district, including Boulogne-Billancourt, Issy-les-Moulineaux and the southern part of the 15th arrondissement, is a centre of activity for the media and information technology.
The top French companies listed in the Fortune Global 500 for 2021 all have their headquarters in the Paris Region; six in the central business district of the City of Paris; and four close to the city in the Hauts-de-Seine Department, three in La Défense and one in Boulogne-Billancourt. Some companies, like Société Générale, have offices in both Paris and La Défense.
The Paris Region is France's leading region for economic activity, with a GDP
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...
of euro, €681 billion (~US$850 billion) and €56,000 (~US$70,000) per capita. In 2011, its GDP ranked second among the regions of Europe and its per-capita GDP was the 4th highest in Europe. While the Paris region's population accounted for 18.8 percent of metropolitan France in 2011, the Paris region's GDP accounted for 30 percent of metropolitan France's GDP.
The Paris Region economy has gradually shifted from industry to high-value-added service industries (Financial services, finance, IT services) and high-tech manufacturing (electronics, optics, aerospace, etc.). The Paris region's most intense economic activity through the central Hauts-de-Seine department and suburban La Défense business district places Paris's economic centre to the west of the city, in a triangle between the Palais Garnier, ''Opéra Garnier'', ''La Défense'' and the ''Val de Seine''. While the Paris economy is dominated by Service Sector, services, and employment in manufacturing sector has declined sharply, the region remains an important manufacturing centre, particularly for aeronautics, automobiles, and "eco" industries.
In the 2017 worldwide cost of living survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is the research and analysis division of the Economist Group, providing forecasting and advisory services through research and analysis, such as monthly country reports, five-year country economic forecasts, ...
, based on a survey made in September 2016, Paris ranked as the seventh most expensive city in the world, and the second most expensive in Europe, after Zurich.
In 2018, Paris was the most expensive city in the world with Singapore and Hong Kong.
Station F is a business incubator for startups, located in 13th arrondissement of Paris. Noted as the world's largest startup facility.
Employment
According to 2015 INSEE figures, 68.3 percent of employees in the City of Paris work in commerce, transportation, and services; 24.5 percent in public administration, health and social services; 4.1 percent in industry, and 0.1 percent in agriculture.
The majority of Paris's salaried employees fill 370,000 businesses services jobs, concentrated in the north-western 8th, 16th and 17th arrondissements. Paris's financial service companies are concentrated in the central-western 8th and 9th arrondissement banking and insurance district. Paris's department store district in the 1st, 6th, 8th and 9th arrondissements employ ten percent of mostly female Paris workers, with 100,000 of these registered in the retail trade. Fourteen percent of Parisians work in hotels and restaurants and other services to individuals. Nineteen percent of Paris employees work for the State in either administration or education. The majority of Paris's healthcare and social workers work at the hospitals and social housing concentrated in the peripheral 13th, 14th, 18th, 19th and 20th arrondissements. Outside Paris, the western Hauts-de-Seine department La Défense district specialising in finance, insurance and scientific research district, employs 144,600, and the north-eastern Seine-Saint-Denis audiovisual sector has 200 media firms and 10 major film studios.
Paris's manufacturing is mostly focused in its suburbs, and the city itself has only around 75,000 manufacturing workers, most of which are in the textile, clothing, leather goods, and shoe trades. Paris region manufacturing specialises in transportation, mainly automobiles, aircraft and trains, but this is in a sharp decline: Paris proper manufacturing jobs dropped by 64 percent between 1990 and 2010, and the Paris region lost 48 percent during the same period. Most of this is due to companies relocating outside the Paris region. The Paris region's 800 aerospace companies employed 100,000. Four hundred automobile industry companies employ another 100,000 workers: many of these are centred in the Yvelines department around the Renault and PSA-Citroën plants (this department alone employs 33,000), but the industry as a whole suffered a major loss with the 2014 closing of a major Aulnay-sous-Bois Citroën assembly plant.
The southern Essonne department specialises in science and technology, and the south-eastern Val-de-Marne
Val-de-Marne (, "Vale of the Marne") is a department of France located in the Île-de-France region. Named after the river Marne, it is situated in the Grand Paris metropolis to the southeast of the City of Paris. In 2019, Val-de-Marne had a p ...
, with its wholesale Marché international de Rungis, Rungis food market, specialises in food processing and beverages. The Paris region's manufacturing decline is quickly being replaced by eco-industries: these employ about 100,000 workers. In 2011, while only 56,927 construction workers worked in Paris itself, its metropolitan area employed 246,639, in an activity centred largely on the Seine-Saint-Denis
() is a department of France located in the Grand Paris metropolis in the region. In French, it is often referred to colloquially as ' or ' ("ninety-three" or "nine three"), after its official administrative number, 93. Its prefecture is Bobig ...
(41,378) and Hauts-de-Seine (37,303) departments and the new business-park centres appearing there.
Unemployment
The unemployment rate in Paris in the 4th trimester of 2021 was six percent, compared with 7.2 percent in the whole Ile-de-France, and 7.4 percent in the whole of France. This was the lowest rate in thirteen years.
Incomes
The average net household income (after social, pension and health insurance contributions) in Paris was €36,085 for 2011. It ranged from €22,095 in the 19th arrondissement to €82,449 in the 7th arrondissement. The median taxable income for 2011 was around €25,000 in Paris and €22,200 for ''Île-de-France''. Generally speaking, incomes are higher in the Western part of the city and in the western suburbs than in the northern and eastern parts of the urban area.
While Paris has some of the richest neighbourhoods in France, it also has some of the poorest, mostly on the eastern side of the city. In 2012, 14 percent of households in the city earned less than €977 per month, the official poverty line. Twenty-five percent of residents in the 19th arrondissement lived below the poverty line; 24 percent in the 18th, 22 percent in the 20th and 18 percent in the 10th. In the city's wealthiest neighbourhood, the 7th arrondissement, 7 percent lived below the poverty line; 8 percent in the 6th arrondissement; and 9 percent in the 16th arrondissement.
Tourism
Tourism recovered in the Paris region in 2021, increasing to 22.6 million visitors, thirty percent more than in 2020, but still well below 2019 levels. The number of visitors from the United States increased by 237 percent over 2020.
Grand Paris, Greater Paris, comprising Paris and its three surrounding departments, received 38 million visitors in 2019, a record, measured by hotel arrivals. These included 12.2 million French visitors. Of foreign visitors, the greatest number came from the United States (2.6 million), United Kingdom (1.2 million), Germany (981 thousand) and China (711 thousand).[ However, tourism to Paris and its region fell to 17.5 million in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a 78 percent drop in foreign tourists measured by hotel stays, and a drop of 56 percent in French guests, for an overall drop of 68 percent. This caused a drop 15 billion Euros in hotel receipts.
In 2018, measured by the Euromonitor Global Cities Destination Index, Paris was the second-busiest airline destination in the world, with 19.10 million visitors, behind Bangkok (22.78 million) but ahead of London (19.09 million). According to the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau, 393,008 workers in Greater Paris, or 12.4% of the total workforce, are engaged in tourism-related sectors such as hotels, catering, transport and leisure.][
]
Monuments and attractions
The city's top cultural attraction in 2019 was the Sacré-Cœur, Paris, Basilica of Sacré-Cœur (11 million visitors), followed by the Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
(9.6 million visitors); the Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.
Locally nicknamed "' ...
(6.1 million visitors); the Centre Pompidou (3.5 million visitors); and the Musée d'Orsay (3.3 million visitors).[
The centre of Paris contains the most visited monuments in the city, including the Notre Dame Cathedral (now closed for restoration) and the Louvre as well as the ]Sainte-Chapelle
The Sainte-Chapelle (; en, Holy Chapel) is a royal chapel in the Gothic style, within the medieval Palais de la Cité, the residence of the Kings of France until the 14th century, on the Île de la Cité in the River Seine in Paris, France.
...
; Les Invalides, where the tomb of Napoleon is located, and the Eiffel Tower are located on the Left Bank south-west of the centre. The Panthéon and the Catacombs of Paris are also located on the Left Bank of the Seine. The banks of the Seine from the Pont de Sully west to the Pont d'Iéna have been listed as a UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
since 1991.
Other landmarks are laid out east to west along the historical axis of Paris, which runs from the Louvre through the Tuileries Garden, the Luxor Column in the Place de la Concorde, and the Arc de Triomphe, to the Grande Arche of La Défense. Several other much-visited landmarks are located in the suburbs of the city; the Basilica of St Denis, in Seine-Saint-Denis
() is a department of France located in the Grand Paris metropolis in the region. In French, it is often referred to colloquially as ' or ' ("ninety-three" or "nine three"), after its official administrative number, 93. Its prefecture is Bobig ...
, is the birthplace of the Gothic style of architecture and the royal necropolis of French kings and queens. The Paris region hosts three other UNESCO Heritage sites: the Palace of Versailles in the west, the Palace of Fontainebleau in the south, and the medieval fairs site of Provins in the east. In the Paris region, Disneyland Paris, in Marne-la-Vallée, east of the centre of Paris, received 9.66 million visitors in 2017.
Hotels
In 2019, Greater Paris had 2,056 hotels, including 94 five-star hotels, with a total of 121,646 rooms.[ Paris has long been famous for its grand hotels. The Hotel Meurice, opened for British travellers in 1817, was one of the first luxury hotels in Paris. The arrival of the railways and the Exposition Universelle (1855), Paris Exposition of 1855 brought the first flood of tourists and the first modern grand hotels; the Hôtel du Louvre (now an antiques marketplace) in 1855; the Grand Hotel (now the InterContinental Paris Le Grand Hotel) in 1862; and the Hôtel Continental in 1878. The Hotel Ritz Paris, Hôtel Ritz on Place Vendôme opened in 1898, followed by the Hôtel Crillon in an 18th-century building on the Place de la Concorde in 1909; the Hôtel Le Bristol Paris, Hotel Bristol on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in 1925; and the Hotel George V in 1928.
In addition to hotels, in 2019 Greater Paris had 60,000 homes registered with Airbnb.][ Under French law, renters of these units must pay the Paris tourism tax. The company paid the city government 7.3 million euros in 2016.
]
Culture
Painting and sculpture
For centuries, Paris has attracted artists from around the world, who arrive in the city to educate themselves and to seek inspiration from its vast pool of artistic resources and galleries. As a result, Paris has acquired a reputation as the "City of Art". Italian artists were a profound influence on the development of art in Paris in the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly in sculpture and reliefs. Painting and sculpture became the pride of the French monarchy and the French royal family commissioned many Parisian artists to adorn their palaces during the French Baroque and Classicism era. Sculptors such as François Girardon, Girardon, Antoine Coysevox, Coysevox and Nicolas Coustou, Coustou acquired reputations as the finest artists in the royal court in 17th-century France. Pierre Mignard became the first painter to King Louis XIV
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of Ver ...
during this period. In 1648, the ''Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture'' (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture) was established to accommodate for the dramatic interest in art in the capital. This served as France's top art school until 1793.
Paris was in its artistic prime in the 19th century and early 20th century, when it had a colony of artists established in the city and in art schools associated with some of the finest painters of the times: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Paul Gauguin, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and others. The French Revolution and political and social change in France had a profound influence on art in the capital. Paris was central to the development of Romanticism in art, with painters such as Théodore Géricault, Géricault. Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
, Art Nouveau, Symbolism
Symbolism or symbolist may refer to:
Arts
* Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism
** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries
** Russian sym ...
, Fauvism, Cubism and Art Deco movements all evolved in Paris. In the late 19th century, many artists in the French provinces and worldwide flocked to Paris to exhibit their works in the numerous salons and expositions and make a name for themselves. Artists such as Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
, Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...
, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Henri Rousseau, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani and many others became associated with Paris. Picasso, living in Le Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre
Montmartre ( , ) is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Right Bank. The historic district established by the City of Paris in 1995 is bordered by Rue Ca ...
, painted his famous ''Family of Saltimbanques, La Famille de Saltimbanques'' and ''Les Demoiselles d'Avignon'' between 1905 and 1907. Montmartre and Montparnasse became centres for artistic production.
The most prestigious names of French and foreign sculptors, who made their reputation in Paris in the modern era, are Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (Statue of Liberty – ''Liberty Enlightening the World''), Auguste Rodin, Camille Claudel, Antoine Bourdelle, Paul Landowski (statue of Christ the Redeemer (statue), ''Christ the Redeemer'' in Rio de Janeiro) and Aristide Maillol. The Belle Époque, Golden Age of the School of Paris ended between the two world wars.
Photography
The inventor Nicéphore Niépce produced the first permanent photograph on a polished pewter plate in Paris in 1825. In 1839, after the death of Niépce, Louis Daguerre patented the Daguerrotype, which became the most common form of photography until the 1860s. The work of Étienne-Jules Marey in the 1880s contributed considerably to the development of modern photography. Photography came to occupy a central role in Parisian Surrealist activity, in the works of Man Ray and Maurice Tabard. Numerous photographers achieved renown for their photography of Paris, including Eugène Atget, noted for his depictions of street scenes, Robert Doisneau, noted for his playful pictures of people and market scenes (among which ''Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville'' has become iconic of the romantic vision of Paris), Marcel Bovis, noted for his night scenes, as well as others such as Jacques-Henri Lartigue and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Poster art also became an important art form in Paris in the late nineteenth century, through the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jules Chéret, Eugène Grasset, Adolphe Willette, Pierre Bonnard, Georges de Feure, Henri-Gabriel Ibels, Paul Gavarni and Alphonse Mucha.
Museums
Paris Museums were closed for much of 2020, but gradually re-opened in 2021, with limitations on the number of visitors at a time and a requirement that visitors wear masks and show proof of vaccination.
The Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
received 2,8 million visitors in 2021, up from 2.7 million in 2020.["Visitor Figures 2021", "The Art Newspaper", 5 January 2022.] holding its position as first among the List of most-visited museums, most-visited museums. Its treasures include the ''Mona Lisa'' (''La Joconde''), the ''Venus de Milo'' statue, and ''Liberty Leading the People''. The second-most visited museum in the city in 2021, with 1.5 million visitors, was the Centre Georges Pompidou, also known as Beaubourg, which houses the Musée National d'Art Moderne
The Musée National d'Art Moderne (; "National Museum of Modern Art") is the national museum for modern art of France. It is located in Paris and is housed in the Centre Pompidou in the 4th arrondissement of the city. In 2021 it ranked 10th in t ...
The third most visited Paris museum in 2021 was the National Museum of Natural History, France, National Museum of Natural History with 1,4 million visitors. It is famous for its dinosaur artefacts, mineral collections and its Gallery of Evolution. It was followed by the Musée d'Orsay, featuring 19th century art and the French Impressionists, which had one million visitors. Paris hosts one of the largest science museums in Europe, the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie, (984,000 visitors in 2020). The other most-visited Paris museums in 2021 were the Fondation Louis Vuitton (691,000), the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, featuring the indigenous art and cultures of Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. (616,000); the Musée Carnavalet (History of Paris) (606,000), and the Petit Palais
The Petit Palais (; en, Small Palace) is an art museum in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France.
Built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle ("universal exhibition"), it now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts (''Musée des beaux-arts ...
, the art museum of the City of Paris (518,000).
The Musée de l'Orangerie
The Musée de l'Orangerie ( en, Orangery Museum) is an art gallery of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings located in the west corner of the Tuileries Garden next to the Place de la Concorde in Paris. The museum is most famous as the ...
, near both the Louvre and the Orsay, also exhibits Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, including most of Claude Monet's large ''Water Lilies (Monet series), Water Lilies'' murals. The Musée national du Moyen Âge, or Cluny Museum, presents Medieval art, including the famous tapestry cycle of ''The Lady and the Unicorn''. The Guimet Museum, or ''Musée national des arts asiatiques'', has one of the largest collections of Asian art in Europe. There are also notable museums devoted to individual artists, including the Musée Picasso, the Musée Rodin
The Musée Rodin ( en, Rodin Museum) in Paris, France, is a museum that was opened in 1919, primarily dedicated to the works of the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. It has two sites: the Hôtel Biron and surrounding grounds in central Paris, as ...
and the Musée national Eugène Delacroix.
The military history of France, from the Middle Ages to World War II, is vividly presented by displays at the Musée de l'Armée at Les Invalides, near the tomb of Napoleon. In addition to the national museums, run by the Ministry of Culture (France), Ministry of Culture, the City of Paris operates 14 museums, including the Carnavalet Museum on the history of Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Palais de Tokyo, the Maison de Victor Hugo, House of Victor Hugo, the Maison de Balzac, House of Balzac and the Catacombs of Paris. There are also notable private museums; The Contemporary Art museum of the Louis Vuitton Foundation, designed by architect Frank Gehry, opened in October 2014 in the Bois de Boulogne
The Bois de Boulogne (, "Boulogne woodland") is a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. The land was ceded to the city of Paris by t ...
.
Theatre
The largest opera houses of Paris are the 19th-century Opéra Garnier (historical Opéra National de Paris, Paris Opéra) and modern Opéra Bastille
The Opéra Bastille (, "Bastille Opera House") is a modern opera house in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, France. Inaugurated in 1989 as part of President François Mitterrand's '' Grands Travaux'', it became the main facility of the Paris Nat ...
; the former tends toward the more classic ballets and operas, and the latter provides a mixed repertoire of classic and modern. In the middle of the 19th century, there were three other active and competing opera houses: the Opéra-Comique (which still exists), Théâtre-Italien and Théâtre Lyrique (which in modern times changed its profile and name to Théâtre de la Ville). Philharmonie de Paris, the modern symphonic concert hall of Paris, opened in January 2015. Another musical landmark is the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, where the first performances of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes took place in 1913.
Theatre traditionally has occupied a large place in Parisian culture, and many of its most popular actors today are also stars of French television. The oldest and most famous Paris theatre is the Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française () or Théâtre-Français () is one of the few state theatres in France. Founded in 1680, it is the oldest active theatre company in the world. Established as a French state-controlled entity in 1995, it is the only state ...
, founded in 1680. Run by the Government of France, it performs mostly French classics at the Salle Richelieu in the Palais-Royal at 2 rue de Richelieu, just north of the Louvre. Other famous theatres include the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, just north of the Luxembourg Gardens, also a state institution and theatrical landmark; the Théâtre Mogador, and the Théâtre de la Gaîté-Montparnasse.
The music hall and cabaret are famous Paris institutions. The ''Moulin Rouge'' was opened in 1889. It was highly visible because of its large red imitation windmill on its roof, and became the birthplace of the dance known as the French Cancan. It helped make famous the singers Mistinguett and Édith Piaf and the painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Toulouse-Lautrec, who made posters for the venue. In 1911, the dance hall Olympia Paris invented the grand staircase as a settling for its shows, competing with its great rival, the ''Folies Bergère''. Its stars in the 1920s included the American singer and dancer Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted Fran ...
. Later, Olympia Paris presented Dalida, Edith Piaf, Marlene Dietrich, Miles Davis, Judy Garland and the Grateful Dead.
The Casino de Paris presented many famous French singers, including Mistinguett, Maurice Chevalier and Tino Rossi. Other famous Paris music halls include ''Le Lido'', on the Champs-Élysées, opened in 1946; and the Crazy Horse (cabaret), Crazy Horse Saloon, featuring strip-tease, dance and magic, opened in 1951. A half dozen music halls exist today in Paris, attended mostly by visitors to the city.
Literature
The first book printed in France, ''Epistolae'' ("Letters"), by Gasparinus de Bergamo (Gasparino da Barzizza), was published in Paris in 1470 by the press established by Johann Heynlin. Since then, Paris has been the centre of the French publishing industry, the home of some of the world's best-known writers and poets, and the setting for many classic works of French literature. Almost all the books published in Paris in the Middle Ages were in Latin, rather than French. Paris did not become the acknowledged capital of French literature until the 17th century, with authors such as Nicolas Boileau, Boileau, Pierre Corneille, Corneille, La Fontaine, Molière, Jean Racine, Racine, Charles Perrault, several coming from the provinces, as well as the foundation of the Académie française. In the 18th century, the literary life of Paris revolved around the cafés and salons; it was dominated by Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Pierre de Marivaux and Pierre Beaumarchais.
During the 19th century, Paris was the home and subject for some of France's greatest writers, including Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited ...
, Stéphane Mallarmé, Mérimée, Alfred de Musset, Marcel Proust, Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also , ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of ...
, Alexandre Dumas, Gustave Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant and Honoré de Balzac. Victor Hugo's ''The Hunchback of Notre Dame'' inspired the renovation of its setting, the Notre-Dame de Paris. Another of Victor Hugo's works, ''Les Misérables'', written while he was in exile outside France during the Second Empire, described the social change and political turmoil in Paris in the early 1830s. One of the most popular of all French writers, Jules Verne, worked at the Theatre Lyrique and the Paris stock exchange, while he did research for his stories at the National Library.
In the 20th century, the Paris literary community was dominated by figures such as Colette, André Gide, François Mauriac, André Malraux, Albert Camus, and, after World War II, by Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Between the wars it was the home of many important expatriate writers, including Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...
, Samuel Beckett, Miguel Ángel Asturias, Alejo Carpentier and, Arturo Uslar Pietri. The winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, Patrick Modiano (who lives in Paris), based most of his literary work on the depiction of the city during World War II and the 1960s–1970s.
Paris is a city of books and bookstores. In the 1970s, 80 percent of French-language publishing houses were found in Paris, almost all on the Left Bank in the 5th, 6th and 7th arrondissements. Since that time, because of high prices, some publishers have moved out to the less expensive areas. It is also a city of small bookstores. There are about 150 bookstores in the 5th arrondissement alone, plus another 250 book stalls along the Seine. Small Paris bookstores are protected against competition from discount booksellers by French law; books, even e-books, cannot be discounted more than five percent below their publisher's cover price.
Music
In the late 12th century, a school of polyphony was established at Notre-Dame. Among the Trouvères of northern France, a group of Parisian aristocrats became known for their poetry and songs. Troubadours, from the south of France, were also popular. During the reign of Francis I of France, François I, in the Renaissance music, Renaissance era, the lute became popular in the French court. The French royal family and courtiers "disported themselves in masques, ballets, allegorical dances, recitals, and opera and comedy", and a national musical printing house was established. In the Baroque music, Baroque-era, noted composers included Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and François Couperin. The Conservatoire de Paris, ''Conservatoire de Musique de Paris'' was founded in 1795. By 1870, Paris had become an important centre for symphony, ballet and operatic music.
Romantic music, Romantic-era composers (in Paris) include Hector Berlioz (''La Symphonie fantastique''), Charles Gounod (Faust (opera), ''Faust''), Camille Saint-Saëns (''Samson et Delilah''), Léo Delibes (''Lakmé'') and Jules Massenet (''Thaïs''), among others. Georges Bizet's ''Carmen'' premiered 3 March 1875. ''Carmen'' has since become one of the most popular and frequently-performed operas in the classical Western canon, canon.[''Georges Bizet: Carmen''](_blank)
Susan McClary, p. 120 Among the Impressionism in music, Impressionist composers who created new works for piano, orchestra, opera, chamber music and other musical forms, stand in particular, Claude Debussy (''Suite bergamasque'', and its well-known third movement, ''Clair de lune'', La mer (Debussy), ''La Mer'', Pelléas et Mélisande (opera), ''Pelléas et Mélisande''), Erik Satie (''Gymnopédies'', "Je te veux", ''Gnossiennes'', ''Parade (ballet), Parade'') and Maurice Ravel (''Miroirs'', ''Boléro'', ''La valse'', ''L'heure espagnole''). Several foreign-born composers, such as Frédéric Chopin (Poland), Franz Liszt (Hungary), Jacques Offenbach (Germany), Niccolò Paganini (Italy), and Igor Stravinsky (Russia), established themselves or made significant contributions both with their works and their influence in Paris.
Bal-musette is a style of French music and dance that first became popular in Paris in the 1870s and 1880s; by 1880 Paris had some 150 dance halls in the working-class neighbourhoods of the city. Patrons danced the bourrée to the accompaniment of the cabrette (a bellows-blown bagpipe locally called a "musette") and often the vielle à roue (hurdy-gurdy) in the cafés and bars of the city. Parisian and Italian musicians who played the accordion adopted the style and established themselves in Auvergnat bars especially in the 19th arrondissement, and the romantic sounds of the accordion has since become one of the musical icons of the city. Paris became a major centre for jazz and still attracts jazz musicians from all around the world to its clubs and cafés.
Paris is the spiritual home of gypsy jazz in particular, and many of the Parisian jazzmen who developed in the first half of the 20th century began by playing Bal-musette in the city. Django Reinhardt rose to fame in Paris, having moved to the 18th arrondissement in a caravan as a young boy, and performed with violinist Stéphane Grappelli and their Quintette du Hot Club de France in the 1930s and 1940s.
Immediately after the War the Saint-Germain-des-Pres quarter and the nearby Saint-Michel quarter became home to many small jazz clubs, mostly found in cellars because of a lack of space; these included the Caveau des Lorientais, the Club Saint-Germain, the Rose Rouge, the Vieux-Colombier, and the most famous, Le Tabou. They introduced Parisians to the music of Claude Luter, Boris Vian, Sydney Bechet, Mezz Mezzrow, and Henri Salvador. Most of the clubs closed by the early 1960s, as musical tastes shifted toward rock and roll.
Some of the finest manouche musicians in the world are found here playing the cafés of the city at night. Some of the more notable jazz venues include the New Morning, Le Sunset, La Chope des Puces and Bouquet du Nord. Several yearly festivals take place in Paris, including the Paris Jazz Festival and the rock festival Rock en Seine. The Orchestre de Paris was established in 1967. On 19 December 2015, Paris and other worldwide fans commemorated the 100th anniversary of the birth of Edith Piaf—a cabaret singer-songwriter and actress who became widely regarded as France's national Chanson, chanteuse, as well as being one of France's greatest international stars. Other singers—of similar style—include Maurice Chevalier, Charles Aznavour, Yves Montand, as well as Charles Trenet.
Paris has a big French hip hop, hip hop scene. This music became popular during the 1980s. The presence of a large African and Caribbean community helped to its development, it gave a voice, a political and social status for many minorities.
Cinema
The movie industry was born in Paris when Auguste and Louis Lumière projected the first motion picture for a paying audience at the Grand Café on 28 December 1895. Many of Paris's concert/dance halls were transformed into cinemas when the media became popular beginning in the 1930s. Later, most of the largest cinemas were divided into multiple, smaller rooms. Paris's largest cinema room today is in the Grand Rex theatre with 2,700 seats.
Big multiplex cinemas have been built since the 1990s. UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles with 27 screens, MK2 Bibliothèque with 20 screens and UGC Ciné Cité Bercy with 18 screens are among the largest.
Parisians tend to share the same movie-going trends as many of the world's global cities, with cinemas primarily dominated by Hollywood-generated film entertainment. Cinema of France, French cinema comes a close second, with major directors (''réalisateurs'') such as Claude Lelouch, Jean-Luc Godard, and Luc Besson, and the more slapstick/popular genre with director Claude Zidi as an example. European and Asian films are also widely shown and appreciated. On 2 February 2000, Philippe Binant realised the first digital cinema projection in Europe, with the DLP CINEMA technology developed by Texas Instruments, in Paris.
Restaurants and cuisine
Since the late 18th century, Paris has been famous for its restaurants and ''haute cuisine'', food meticulously prepared and artfully presented. A luxury restaurant, La Taverne Anglaise, opened in 1786 in the arcades of the Palais-Royal by Antoine Beauvilliers; it featured an elegant dining room, an extensive menu, linen tablecloths, a large wine list and well-trained waiters; it became a model for future Paris restaurants. The restaurant Le Grand Véfour in the Palais-Royal dates from the same period. The famous Paris restaurants of the 19th century, including the Café de Paris, the Au Rocher de Cancale, Rocher de Cancale, the Café Anglais, Maison dorée (Paris), Maison Dorée and the Café Riche, were mostly located near the theatres on the Boulevard des Italiens; they were immortalised in the novels of Balzac and Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also , ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of ...
. Several of the best-known restaurants in Paris today appeared during the ''Belle Époque'', including Maxim's Paris, Maxim's on Rue Royale, Ledoyen in the gardens of the Champs-Élysées
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées (, ; ) is an avenue in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, long and wide, running between the Place de la Concorde in the east and the Place Charles de Gaulle in the west, where the Arc de Triomphe is l ...
, and the Tour d'Argent on the Quai de la Tournelle.
Today, due to Paris's cosmopolitan population, every French regional cuisine and almost every national cuisine in the world can be found there; the city has more than 9,000 restaurants. The Michelin Guide has been a standard guide to French restaurants since 1900, awarding its highest award, three stars, to the best restaurants in France. In 2018, of the 27 Michelin three-star restaurants in France, ten are located in Paris. These include both restaurants which serve classical French cuisine, such as L'Ambroisie in the Place des Vosges, and those which serve non-traditional menus, such as L'Astrance, which combines French and Asian cuisines. Several of France's most famous chefs, including Pierre Gagnaire, Alain Ducasse, Yannick Alléno and Alain Passard, have three-star restaurants in Paris.
In addition to the classical restaurants, Paris has several other kinds of traditional eating places. The Coffeehouse, café arrived in Paris in the 17th century, when the beverage was first brought from Turkey, and by the 18th century Parisian cafés were centres of the city's political and cultural life. The Café Procope on the Left Bank dates from this period. In the 20th century, the cafés of the Left Bank, especially Café de la Rotonde and Le Dôme Café in Montparnasse and Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots on Boulevard Saint Germain, all still in business, were important meeting places for painters, writers and philosophers. A bistro is a type of eating place loosely defined as a neighbourhood restaurant with a modest decor and prices and a regular clientele and a congenial atmosphere. Its name is said to have come in 1814 from the Russian soldiers who occupied the city; "bistro" means "quickly" in Russian language, Russian, and they wanted their meals served rapidly so they could get back to their encampment. Real bistros are increasingly rare in Paris, due to rising costs, competition from cheaper ethnic restaurants, and different eating habits of Parisian diners. A brasserie originally was a tavern located next to a brewery, which served beer and food at any hour. Beginning with the Paris Exposition of 1867; it became a popular kind of restaurant which featured beer and other beverages served by young women in the national costume associated with the beverage, particularly German costumes for beer. Now brasseries, like cafés, serve food and drinks throughout the day.
Fashion
Since the 19th century, Paris has been an international fashion capital, particularly in the domain of haute couture (clothing hand-made to order for private clients). It is home to some of the largest fashion houses in the world, including Christian Dior S.A., Dior and Chanel, as well as many other well-known and more contemporary fashion designers, such as Karl Lagerfeld, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Yves Saint Laurent (designer), Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy, and Christian Lacroix. Paris Fashion Week, held in January and July in the Carrousel du Louvre among other renowned city locations, is one of the top four events on the international fashion calendar. The other fashion capitals of the world, Milan, London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, and New York City, New York, also host fashion weeks. Moreover, Paris is also the home of the world's largest cosmetics company: L'Oréal as well as three of the top five global makers of luxury fashion accessories: Louis Vuitton, Hermés, and Cartier (jeweler), Cartier. Most of the major fashion designers have their showrooms along the Avenue Montaigne, between the Champs-Élysées
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées (, ; ) is an avenue in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, long and wide, running between the Place de la Concorde in the east and the Place Charles de Gaulle in the west, where the Arc de Triomphe is l ...
and the Seine.
Holidays and festivals
Bastille Day, a celebration of the storming of the Bastille in 1789, the biggest festival in the city, is a military parade taking place every year on 14 July on the Champs-Élysées
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées (, ; ) is an avenue in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, long and wide, running between the Place de la Concorde in the east and the Place Charles de Gaulle in the west, where the Arc de Triomphe is l ...
, from the Arc de Triomphe to Place de la Concorde. It includes a flypast over the Champs Élysées by the Patrouille de France, a parade of military units and equipment, and a display of fireworks in the evening, the most spectacular being the one at the Eiffel Tower.
Some other yearly festivals are Paris-Plages, a festive event that lasts from mid-July to mid-August when the Right Bank of the Seine is converted into a temporary beach with sand, deck chairs and palm trees; European Heritage Days, Journées du Patrimoine, Fête de la Musique, Techno Parade, Nuit Blanche, Cinéma au clair de lune, Printemps des rues, Festival d'automne, and Fête des jardins. The Paris Carnival, Carnaval de Paris, one of the oldest festivals in Paris, dates back to the Middle Ages.
Education
Paris is the département with the highest proportion of highly educated people. In 2009, around 40 percent of Parisians held a ''Licence (France), licence''-level diploma or higher, the highest proportion in France, while 13 percent have no diploma, the third-lowest percentage in France. Education in Paris and the Île-de-France region employs approximately 330,000 people, 170,000 of whom are teachers and professors teaching approximately 2.9 million children and students in around 9,000 primary, secondary, and higher education schools and institutions.
The University of Paris
, image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of Arms
, latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis
, motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin)
, mottoeng = Here and a ...
, founded in the 12th century, is often called the University of Paris, Sorbonne after one of its original medieval colleges. It was broken up into List of universities and institutions in the Paris region, thirteen autonomous universities in 1970, following the May 68, student demonstrations in 1968. Most of the campuses today are in the Latin Quarter
The Latin Quarter of Paris (french: Quartier latin, ) is an area in the 5th and the 6th arrondissements of Paris. It is situated on the left bank of the Seine, around the Sorbonne.
Known for its student life, lively atmosphere, and bistro ...
where the old university was located, while others are scattered around the city and the suburbs.
The Paris region hosts France's highest concentration of the ''grandes écoles'' – 55 specialised centres of higher-education outside or inside the public university structure. The prestigious public universities are usually considered ''grands établissements''. Most of the ''grandes écoles'' were relocated to the suburbs of Paris in the 1960s and 1970s, in new campuses much larger than the old campuses within the crowded City of Paris, though the École Normale Supérieure, Paris Sciences et Lettres University, PSL University has remained on rue d'Ulm in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, 5th arrondissement. There are a high number of engineering schools, led by the Paris Sciences et Lettres University, PSL University (which comprises several colleges such as École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris, École des Mines, Chimie ParisTech, École nationale supérieure de chimie, École pratique des hautes études, École Pratique des Hautes Études and Paris Dauphine University, Paris-Dauphine), the Paris-Saclay University (which comprises several colleges such as AgroParisTech, CentraleSupélec and École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay, ENS Paris-Saclay) the Polytechnic Institute of Paris (which comprises several colleges such as École Polytechnique, École nationale supérieure des télécommunications, Télécom Paris and École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Economique, École nationale de la statistique et de l'administration économique) and also independent colleges such as École nationale des ponts et chaussées, École des Ponts et Chaussées or École nationale supérieure d'arts et métiers, Arts et Métiers. There are also many business schools, including HEC School of Management, HEC, INSEAD, École supérieure des sciences économiques et commerciales, ESSEC, and ESCP Europe. While École nationale d'administration, ENA, the school training higher-level civil servants, has been relocated from Paris to Strasbourg, three of the most prestigious social sciences universities, Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, Sciences Po (7th arrondissement), École des hautes études en sciences sociales (6th arrondissement), and Paris Dauphine University, Paris-Dauphine (16th arrondissement) are still located in Paris. The Parisian school of journalism CELSA Paris, CELSA department of Sorbonne University is located in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Paris is also home to several of France's most famous high-schools such as Lycée Louis-le-Grand, Lycée Henri-IV, Lycée Janson de Sailly and Lycée Condorcet. The INSEP, National Institute of Sport and Physical Education, located in the 12th arrondissement, is both a physical education institute and high-level training centre for elite athletes.
Libraries
The '' Bibliothèque nationale de France'' (BnF) operates public libraries in Paris, among them the François Mitterrand Library, Richelieu Library, Louvois, Opéra Library, and Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Arsenal Library. There are three public libraries in the 4th arrondissement. The Hôtel de Sens, Forney Library, in the Marais district, is dedicated to the decorative arts; the Arsenal Library occupies a former military building, and has a large collection on French literature; and the Bibliothèque historique de la ville de Paris, also in Le Marais, contains the Paris historical research service. The Sainte-Geneviève Library is in 5th arrondissement; designed by Henri Labrouste and built in the mid-1800s, it contains a rare book and manuscript division. Bibliothèque Mazarine, in the 6th arrondissement, is the oldest public library in France. The Médiathèque Musicale Mahler in the 8th arrondissement opened in 1986 and contains collections related to music. The François Mitterrand Library (nicknamed ''Très Grande Bibliothèque'') in the 13th arrondissement was completed in 1994 to a design of Dominique Perrault and contains four glass towers.[
There are several academic libraries and archives in Paris. The Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne, Sorbonne Library in the 5th arrondissement is the largest university library in Paris. In addition to the ]Sorbonne
Sorbonne may refer to:
* Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities.
*the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970)
*one of its components or linked institution, ...
location, there are branches in Malesherbes, Clignancourt-Championnet, Michelet-Institut d'Art et d'Archéologie, Serpente-Maison de la Recherche, and Institut des Etudes Ibériques. Other academic libraries include Interuniversity Pharmaceutical Library, Leonardo da Vinci University Library, Paris School of Mines Library, and the René Descartes University Library.
Sports
Paris's most popular sport clubs are the association football club Paris Saint-Germain F.C. and the rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...
clubs Stade Français and Racing 92, the last of which is based just outside the city proper. The 80,000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the commune of Saint-Denis. It is used for football, rugby union and track and field athletics. It hosts the France national football team for friendlies and major tournaments qualifiers, annually hosts the France national rugby union team, French national rugby team's home matches of the Six Nations Championship, and hosts several important matches of the Stade Français rugby team. In addition to Paris Saint-Germain F.C., the city has a number of other professional and amateur football clubs: Paris FC, Red Star Saint-Ouen, Red Star, RCF Paris and Stade Français Paris (football), Stade Français Paris.
Paris hosted the 1900
As of March 1 ( O.S. February 17), when the Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day further behind, bringing the difference to 13 days until February 28 ( O.S. February 15), 2 ...
and 1924
Events
January
* January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after.
* January 20– 30 – Kuomintang in China holds ...
Summer Olympics and will host the 2024 Summer Olympics
)
, nations = TBA
, athletes = 10,500 ''(quota limit)''
, events = 329 in 32 sports (48 disciplines)
, opening = 26 July 2024
, closing = 11 August 2024
, opened_by =
, stadium = Stade de France Jardins du Trocadéro and River Seine
, summe ...
and Paralympic Games.
The city also hosted the finals of the 1938 FIFA World Cup (at the Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir, Stade Olympique de Colombes), as well as the 1998 FIFA World Cup and the 2007 Rugby World Cup Final (both at the Stade de France). Three UEFA Champions League Finals in the current century have also been played in the Stade de France: the 2000 UEFA Champions League Final, 2000, 2006 UEFA Champions League Final, 2006 and 2022 UEFA Champions League Final, 2022. Paris has most recently been the host for UEFA Euro 2016, both at the Parc des Princes in the city proper and also at Stade de France, with the latter hosting the opening match and final.
The final stage of the most famous Road bicycle racing, bicycle racing in the world, Tour de France
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...
, always finishes in Paris. Since 1975, the race has Champs-Élysées stage in the Tour de France, finished on the Champs-Elysées.
Tennis is another popular sport in Paris and throughout France; the French Open, held every year on the red clay of the Roland Garros National Tennis Centre, is one of the four Grand Slam
Grand Slam most often refers to:
* Grand Slam (tennis), one player or pair winning all four major annual tournaments, or the tournaments themselves
Grand Slam or Grand slam may also refer to:
Games and sports
* Grand slam, winning category te ...
events of the world professional tennis tour. The 17,000-seat AccorHotels Arena, Bercy Arena (officially named ''AccorHotels Arena'' and formerly known as the ''Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy'') is the venue for the annual Paris Masters ATP Tour tennis tournament and has been a frequent site of national and international tournaments in basketball, boxing, cycling, handball, ice hockey, show jumping and other sports. The Bercy Arena also hosted the 2017 IIHF World Championship, 2017 IIHF World Ice Hockey Championship, together with Cologne, Germany. The final stages of the FIBA EuroBasket 1951 and EuroBasket 1999 were also played in Paris, the latter at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy.
The basketball team Levallois Metropolitans plays some of its games at the 4,000 capacity Stade Pierre de Coubertin (Paris), Stade Pierre de Coubertin. Another top-level professional team, Nanterre 92, plays in Nanterre.
In 2023, a professional American football team will start in the city joining the European League of Football, European league of football.
Infrastructure
Transport
Paris is a major rail, highway, and air transport hub. Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), formerly the Syndicat des transports d'Île-de-France (STIF) and before that the Syndicat des transports parisiens (STP), oversees the transit network in the region. The syndicate coordinates public transport and contracts it out to the RATP Group, RATP (operating 347 Bus (RATP), bus lines, the Paris Métro, Métro, eight tramway lines, and sections of the RER), the SNCF (operating suburban rails, one tramway line and the other sections of the RER) and the Optile consortium of private operators managing 1,176 bus lines.
According to a 2018 INSEE survey, a large majority of Parisians (64.3 percent) use public transport to get to work. Only 10.6 percent commuted to work by automobile. 10.5 percent walked or used roller skates; 5.5 percent commuted by bicycle; and 4.4 percent commuted by motorbike.
Bike lanes are being doubled, while electric car incentives are being created. The French capital is banning the most polluting automobiles from key districts.
Railways
A central hub of the national rail network, Paris's six major railway stations ( Gare du Nord, Gare de l'Est, Gare de Lyon, Gare d'Austerlitz, Gare Montparnasse, Gare Saint-Lazare) and a minor one (Gare de Bercy) are connected to three networks: the TGV serving four high-speed rail lines, the normal speed Corail (train), Corail trains, and the suburban rails (Transilien).
Métro, RER and tramway
Since the inauguration of its first line in 1900, Paris's Métro network has grown to become the city's most widely used local transport system; today it carries about 5.23 million passengers daily through 16 lines, 308 stations (391 stops) and of rails. Superimposed on this is a 'Réseau Express Régional, regional express network', the RER, whose five lines (A, B, C, D, and E), 257 stops and of rails connect Paris to more distant parts of the urban area.
Over €26.5 billion will be invested over the next 15 years to extend the Métro network into the suburbs, with notably the Grand Paris Express
Grand Paris Express is a group of new rapid transit lines being built in the Île-de-France region of France. The project comprises four new lines for Paris Métro, plus extensions of existing Lines 11 and 14. A total of of new track and 68 n ...
project.
In addition, the Île-de-France, Paris region is served by a light rail network of nine lines, the tramway: Île-de-France tramway Line 1, Line T1 runs from Asnières-Gennevilliers to Noisy-le-Sec, Île-de-France tramway Line 2, Line T2 runs from Pont de Bezons to Porte de Versailles, Île-de-France tramway Lines 3a and 3b, Line T3a runs from Pont du Garigliano to Porte de Vincennes, Île-de-France tramway Lines 3a and 3b, Line T3b runs from Porte de Vincennes to Porte d'Asnières, Île-de-France tramway Line 5, Line T5 runs from Saint-Denis to Garges-Sarcelles, Île-de-France tramway Line 6, Line T6 runs from Châtillon to Viroflay, Île-de-France tramway Line 7, Line T7 runs from Villejuif to Athis-Mons, Île-de-France tramway Line 8, Line T8 runs from Saint-Denis to Épinay-sur-Seine and Villetaneuse, all of which are operated by the RATP Group, and Île-de-France tramway Line 4, line T4 runs from Bondy RER to Aulnay-sous-Bois, which is operated by the state rail carrier SNCF. Five new light rail lines are currently in various stages of development.
Air
Paris is a major international air transport hub with the World's busiest city airport systems by passenger traffic, 5th busiest airport system in the world. The city is served by three commercial international airports: Paris–Charles de Gaulle
Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (french: Aéroport de Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle, ), also known as Roissy Airport or simply Paris CDG, is the principal airport serving the French capital, Paris ( and its metropolitan area), and the largest intern ...
, Paris–Orly and Beauvais–Tillé Airport. Together these three airports recorded traffic of 112 million passengers in 2019. There is also one general aviation airport, Paris – Le Bourget Airport, Paris-Le Bourget, historically the oldest Parisian airport and closest to the city centre, which is now used only for private business flights and air shows.
Orly Airport, located in the southern suburbs of Paris, replaced Le Bourget as the principal airport of Paris from the 1950s to the 1980s. Charles de Gaulle Airport, located on the edge of the northern suburbs of Paris, opened to commercial traffic in 1974 and became the busiest Parisian airport in 1993. For the year 2017 it was the World's busiest airports by international passenger traffic, 5th busiest airport in the world by international traffic and it is the hub for the nation's flag carrier Air France. Beauvais-Tillé Airport, located north of Paris's city centre, is used by charter airlines and low-cost carriers such as Ryanair.
Domestically, air travel between Paris and some of France's largest cities such as Lyon, Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...
, or Strasbourg has been in a large measure replaced by high-speed rail due to the opening of several high-speed TGV rail lines from the 1980s. For example, after the LGV Méditerranée opened in 2001, air traffic between Paris and Marseille declined from 2,976,793 passengers in 2000 to 1,502,196 passengers in 2014. After the LGV Est opened in 2007, air traffic between Paris and Strasbourg declined from 1,006,327 passengers in 2006 to 157,207 passengers in 2014.[
Internationally, air traffic has increased markedly in recent years between Paris and the Persian Gulf, Gulf airports, the emerging nations of Africa, Russia, Turkey, Portugal, Italy, and mainland China, whereas noticeable decline has been recorded between Paris and the British Isles, Egypt, Tunisia, and Japan.]
Motorways
The city is also the most important hub of France's motorway network, and is surrounded by three orbital freeways: the Périphérique, which follows the approximate path of 19th-century fortifications around Paris, the A86 autoroute, A86 motorway in the inner suburbs, and finally the Francilienne motorway in the outer suburbs. Paris has an extensive road network with over of highways and motorways.
Waterways
The Paris region is the most active water transport area in France, with most of the cargo handled by Autonomous Port of Paris, Ports of Paris in facilities located around Paris. The rivers Loire, Rhine, Rhône, Meuse, and Scheldt can be reached by canals connecting with the Seine, which include the Canal Saint-Martin, Canal Saint-Denis, and the Canal de l'Ourcq.
Cycling
There are of Cycling in Paris, cycle paths and routes in Paris. These include ''piste cyclable'' (bike lanes separated from other traffic by physical barriers such as a kerb) and ''bande cyclable'' (a bicycle lane denoted by a painted path on the road). Some of specially marked bus lanes are free to be used by cyclists, with a protective barrier protecting against encroachments from vehicles. Cyclists have also been given the right to ride in both directions on certain one-way streets. Paris offers a community bicycle program, bike sharing system called Vélib'
is a large-scale public bicycle sharing system in Paris, France. Launched on 15 July 2007, the system encompassed around 14,500 bicycles and 1,400 bicycle stations, located across Paris and in some surrounding municipalities, with an average d ...
with more than 20,000 public bicycles distributed at 1,800 parking stations, which can be rented for short and medium distances including One-way traffic, one way trips.
Electricity
Electricity is provided to Paris through a peripheral grid fed by multiple sources. In 2012, around 50% of electricity generated in the Île-de-France
The Île-de-France (, ; literally "Isle of France") is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France. Centred on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the country and often called the ''Région parisienne'' (; en, Pa ...
came from cogeneration energy plants located near the outer limits of the region
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics ( physical geography), human impact characteristics ( human geography), and the interaction of humanity an ...
; other energy sources included thermal power (35%), waste incineration (9% – with cogeneration plants, these provide the city in heat as well), methane gas (5%), hydraulics (1%), solar power (0.1%) and a negligible amount of wind power (0.034 GWh). A quarter of the city's district heating is to come from a plant in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, burning a 50/50-mix of coal and 140,000 tonnes of wood pellets from the United States per year.
Water and sanitation
Paris in its early history had only the rivers Seine and Bièvre (river), Bièvre for water. From 1809, the Canal de l'Ourcq
The Canal de l'Ourcq is a long canal in the Île-de-France region (greater Paris) with 10 locks. It was built at a width of but was enlarged to 3.7 m (12 ft), which permitted use by more pleasure boats. The canal begins at Port-au ...
provided Paris with water from less-polluted rivers to the north-east of the capital. From 1857, the civil engineer Eugène Belgrand, under Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
, oversaw the construction of a series of new aqueducts that brought water from locations all around the city to several reservoirs built atop the Capital's highest points of elevation. From then on, the new reservoir system became Paris's principal source of drinking water, and the remains of the old system, pumped into lower levels of the same reservoirs, were from then on used for the cleaning of Paris's streets. This system is still a major part of Paris's modern water-supply network. Today Paris has more than of underground passageways dedicated to the evacuation of Paris's liquid wastes.
In 1982, Mayor Chirac introduced the motorcycle-mounted Motocrotte to remove dog feces, dog faeces from Paris streets. The project was abandoned in 2002 for a new and better enforced local law, under the terms of which dog owners can be fined up to €500 for not removing their dog faeces. The air pollution in Paris, from the point of view of Particulates, particulate matter (PM10), is the highest in France with 38 μg/m3. From the point of view of nitrogen dioxide pollution, Paris has one of the highest levels in the EU.
Parks and gardens
Paris today has more than 421 municipal parks and gardens, covering more than 3,000 hectares and containing more than 250,000 trees. Two of Paris's oldest and most famous gardens are the Tuileries Garden (created in 1564 for the Tuileries Palace
The Tuileries Palace (french: Palais des Tuileries, ) was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine, directly in front of the Louvre. It was the usual Parisian residence of most French monarchs, f ...
and redone by André Le Nôtre between 1664 and 1672) and the Luxembourg Garden, for the Luxembourg Palace, built for Marie de' Medici in 1612, which today houses the Senate (France), Senate. The ''Jardin des plantes'' was the first botanical garden in Paris, created in 1626 by Louis XIII's doctor Guy de La Brosse for the cultivation of medicinal plants.
Between 1853 and 1870, Emperor Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
and the city's first director of parks and gardens, Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand, created the Bois de Boulogne
The Bois de Boulogne (, "Boulogne woodland") is a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. The land was ceded to the city of Paris by t ...
, Bois de Vincennes
The Bois de Vincennes (), located on the eastern edge of Paris, is the largest public park in the city. It was created between 1855 and 1866 by Emperor Napoleon III.
The park is next to the Château de Vincennes, a former residence of the King ...
, Parc Montsouris and Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, located at the four points of the compass around the city, as well as many smaller parks, squares and gardens in the Paris's quarters. Since 1977, the city has created 166 new parks, most notably the Parc de la Villette (1987), Parc André Citroën (1992), Parc de Bercy (1997) and Parc Clichy-Batignolles – Martin-Luther-King, Parc Clichy-Batignolles (2007). One of the newest parks, the Promenade des Berges de la Seine
The Promenade des Berges de la Seine is a public park and promenade located along the left bank of the Seine river in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, between the Pont de l'Alma and the Musée d'Orsay. The promenade, created on the former highway ...
(2013), built on a former highway on the Rive Gauche, left bank of the Seine between the Pont de l'Alma and the Musée d'Orsay, has floating gardens and gives a view of the city's landmarks.
Weekly Parkruns take place in the Bois de Boulogne and the Parc Montsouris
Cemeteries
During the Roman era, the city's main cemetery was located to the outskirts of the Rive Gauche, left bank settlement, but this changed with the rise of Catholic Christianity, where most every inner-city church had adjoining burial grounds for use by their parishes. With Paris's growth many of these, particularly the city's largest cemetery, the Holy Innocents' Cemetery, were filled to overflowing, creating quite unsanitary conditions for the capital. When inner-city burials were condemned from 1786, the contents of all Paris's parish cemeteries were transferred to a renovated section of Mines of Paris, Paris's stone mines outside the "Porte d'Enfer" city gate, today place Denfert-Rochereau in the 14th arrondissement. The process of moving bones from the ''Holy Innocents' Cemetery, Cimetière des Innocents'' to the Catacombs of Paris, catacombs took place between 1786 and 1814; part of the network of tunnels and remains can be visited today on the official tour of the catacombs.
After a tentative creation of several smaller suburban cemeteries, the Prefect Nicholas Frochot under Napoleon Bonaparte provided a more definitive solution in the creation of three massive Parisian cemeteries outside the city limits. Open from 1804, these were the cemeteries of Père Lachaise Cemetery, Père Lachaise, Montmartre Cemetery, Montmartre, Montparnasse Cemetery, Montparnasse, and later Passy Cemetery, Passy; these cemeteries became inner-city once again when Paris annexed all neighbouring communes to the inside of its much larger ring of suburban fortifications in 1860. New suburban cemeteries were created in the early 20th century: The largest of these are the Saint-Ouen Cemetery, Cimetière parisien de Saint-Ouen, the Cimetière parisien de Pantin (also known as Cimetière parisien de Pantin-Bobigny), the Cimetière parisien d'Ivry-sur-Seine, Ivry, and the Cimetière parisien de Bagneux, Hauts-de-Seine, Bagneux. Some of the most famous people in the world are buried in Parisian cemeteries, such as Oscar Wilde, Frédéric Chopin, Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf and Serge Gainsbourg among others.
Healthcare
Health care and emergency medical service in the City of Paris and its suburbs are provided by the Assistance publique – Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), a public hospital system that employs more than 90,000 people (including practitioners, support personnel, and administrators) in 44 hospitals. It is the largest hospital system in Europe. It provides health care, teaching, research, prevention, education and emergency medical service in 52 branches of medicine. The hospitals receive more than 5.8 million annual patient visits.
One of the most notable hospitals is the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris, Hôtel-Dieu, founded in 651, the oldest hospital in the city and the oldest worldwide still operating, although the current building is the product of a reconstruction of 1877. Other hospitals include Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital (one of the largest in Europe), Hôpital Cochin, Bichat–Claude Bernard Hospital, Hôpital Européen Georges-Pompidou, Bicêtre Hospital, Beaujon Hospital, the Curie Institute (Paris), Curie Institute, Lariboisière Hospital, Necker–Enfants Malades Hospital, Hôpital Saint-Louis, Hôpital de la Charité and the American Hospital of Paris.
Media
Paris and its close suburbs are home to numerous newspapers, magazines and publications including ''Le Monde'', ''Le Figaro'', ''Libération'', ''Le Nouvel Observateur'', ''Le Canard enchaîné'', ''La Croix (newspaper), La Croix'', ''Le Parisien'' (in ''Saint-Ouen, Seine-Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen''), ''Les Échos (France), Les Échos'', ''Paris Match (Neuilly-sur-Seine)'', ''Réseaux & Télécoms'', Reuters France, L'Équipe, l'Equipe (Boulogne-Billancourt) and ''L'Officiel des Spectacles''. France's two most prestigious newspapers, ''Le Monde'' and ''Le Figaro'', are the centrepieces of the Parisian publishing industry. Agence France-Presse is France's oldest, and one of the world's oldest, continually operating news agencies. AFP, as it is colloquially abbreviated, maintains its headquarters in Paris, as it has since 1835. France 24 is a television news channel owned and operated by the French government, and is based in Paris. Another news agency is France Diplomatie, owned and operated by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (France), Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, and pertains solely to diplomatic news and occurrences.
The most-viewed network in France, TF1, is in nearby Boulogne-Billancourt. France 2, France 3, Canal+, France 5, M6 (TV channel), M6 (Neuilly-sur-Seine), Arte, D8 (TV channel), D8, W9 (TV channel), W9, NT1 (TV channel), NT1, NRJ 12, La Chaîne parlementaire, France 4, BFM TV, and Gulli are other stations located in and around the capital. Radio France, France's public radio broadcaster, and its various channels, is headquartered in Paris's 16th arrondissement of Paris, 16th arrondissement. Radio France Internationale, another public broadcaster is also based in the city. Paris also holds the headquarters of the La Poste (France), La Poste, France's national postal carrier.
Notable people
* In lieu of such an article, the following may be helpful:
**:People from Paris, People from Paris
**:Lists of French people, Lists of French people
** List of honorary citizens of Paris
** List of French people
International relations
Twin towns – sister cities
Since 9 April 1956, Paris is exclusively and reciprocally Sister city, twinned only with:
* Rome, 1956
: ''Seule Paris est digne de Rome; seule Rome est digne de Paris.''
: ''Solo Parigi è degna di Roma; solo Roma è degna di Parigi.''
: "Only Paris is worthy of Rome; only Rome is worthy of Paris."
Other relationships
Paris has agreements of friendship and co-operation with:[
* Algiers, 2003
* Amman, 1987
* Amsterdam, 2013
* Athens, 2000
* Beijing, 1997
* Beirut, 1992
* Berlin, 1987
* Brazzaville, 2015
* Buenos Aires, 1999
* Cairo, 1985
* Casablanca, 2004
* Chicago, 1996
* Copenhagen, 2005
* Dakar, 2011
* Doha, 2010
* Geneva, 2002
* Istanbul, 2009
* Jakarta, 1995
* Jericho, 2009
* Kinshasa, 2014
* Kyoto, 1958
* Lisbon, 1998
* ]London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, 2001
* Madrid, 2000
* Mexico City, 1999
* Montevideo, 2013
* Montreal, 2006
* Moscow, 1992
* Phnom Penh, 2007
* Porto Alegre, 2001
* Prague, 1997
* Quebec City, 1996
* Rabat, 2004
* Ramallah, 2011
* Rio de Janeiro, 2009
* Riyadh, 1997
* Saint Petersburg, 1997
* Sanaa, 1987
* San Francisco, 1996
* Santiago, 1997
* São Paulo, 2004
* Seoul, 1991
* Sofia, 1998
* Sydney, 1998
* Tbilisi, 1997
* Tel Aviv, 2010
* Tokyo, 1982
* Tunis, 2004
* Warsaw, 1999
* Washington, D.C., 2000
* Yerevan, 1998
See also
* Art Nouveau in Paris
* Art Deco in Paris
* C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group
* International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts held in Paris in 1925
* Megacity
* Outline of France
* Outline of Paris
* Paris syndrome
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{{Authority control
Paris,
3rd-century BC establishments
Capitals in Europe
Catholic pilgrimage sites
Cities in France
Cities in Île-de-France
Companions of the Liberation
Departments of Île-de-France
European culture
French culture
Populated places established in the 3rd century BC
Prefectures in France
Gallia Lugdunensis