Etymology
The ancientHistory
Origins
The '' Parisii'', a sub-tribe of theHigh and Late Middle Ages to Louis XIV
By the end of the 12th century, Paris had become the political, economic, religious, and cultural capital of France. The18th and 19th centuries
Paris grew in population from about 400,000 in 1640 to 650,000 in 1780. A new boulevard, the20th 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, Amedeo Modigliani, Modigliani, and Henri Matisse 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, 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 city was also bombed by Zeppelins and shelled by German Paris Gun, long-range guns. In the years after the war, known as ''Paris between the Wars (1919–1939), Les Années Folles'', Paris continued to be a mecca for writers, musicians and artists from around the world, including Ernest Hemingway, Igor Stravinsky, James Joyce, Josephine Baker, Eva Kotchever, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Sidney Bechet Allen Ginsberg and the surrealism, surrealist Salvador Dalí. In the years after the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, peace conference, the city was also home to growing numbers of students and activists from French colonial empire, French colonies and other Asian and African countries, who later became leaders of their countries, such as Ho Chi Minh, Zhou Enlai and Léopold Sédar Senghor. On 14 June 1940, the German army marched into Paris, which had been declared an "open city". 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 Roundup, ''Vel d'Hiv'' (''Vélodrome d'Hiver''), from which they were transported by train to the extermination camp at Auschwitz concentration camp, Auschwitz. None of the children came back. On 25 August 1944, the city was liberated by the 2nd Armored Division (France), French 2nd Armoured Division and the 4th Infantry Division (United States), 4th Infantry Division of the United States Army. 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, Paris, 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 National Liberation Front (Algeria), 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 Paris massacre of 1961, 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 (OAS), for their part, carried out a series of bombings in Paris throughout 1961 and 1962. In May 1968, protesting students occupied the Sorbonne (building), Sorbonne and put up barricades in the Latin Quarter, Paris, Latin Quarter. 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 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 Montparnasse, 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 Réseau Express Régional, RER (Réseau Express Régional), was built to complement the Métro; the Périphérique (Paris), Périphérique expressway encircling the city, was completed in 1973. Most of the postwar presidents of the French Fifth Republic, Fifth Republic wanted to leave their own monuments in Paris; President Georges Pompidou started the Centre Georges Pompidou (1977), Valéry Giscard d'Estaing began the Musée d'Orsay (1986); President François Mitterrand, in power for 14 years, had the Opéra Bastille built (1985–1989), the new site of the ''Bibliothèque nationale de France'' (1996), the Arche de la Défense (1985–1989) in La Défense, as well as the Louvre Pyramid with its underground courtyard (1983–1989); Jacques Chirac (2006), the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Musée du quai Branly. 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 became the first Socialist Mayor of Paris. In 2007, in an effort to reduce car traffic in the city, he introduced the Vélib', 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, which he inaugurated in June 2013. In 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy launched the Grand Paris project, to integrate Paris more closely with the towns in the region around it. After many modifications, the new area, named the Grand Paris, 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, totalling of automated metro lines to connect Paris, the innermost three departments around Paris, airports and TGV, high-speed rail (TGV) stations, at an estimated cost of €35 billion. The system is scheduled to be completed by 2030. In January 2015, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed January 2015 Île-de-France attacks, attacks across the Paris region. Republican marches, 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, November 2015 Paris attacks, terrorist attacks, claimed by ISIL, killed 130 people and injured more than 350.Geography
Location
Paris is located in northern central France, in a north-bending arc of the riverClimate
Paris has a typical Western European oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification, Köppen: ''Cfb''), which is affected by the North Atlantic Current. 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 2003 European heat wave, 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, a Socialist Party (France), socialist, first elected 2014 Paris municipal election, 5 April 2014 and re-elected 2020 Paris municipal election, 28 June 2020. The mayor of Paris is indirect election, elected indirectly by Paris voters; the voters of each of the city's 20 arrondissements elect members to the ''Conseil de Paris'' (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 in a two-round system. Party lists winning an absolute majority in the first round – or at least a plurality (voting), 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. 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 Grand Paris, Métropole du Grand Paris, or simply Grand Paris, 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 and Val-de-Marne), plus seven communes in the outer suburbs, including Argenteuil in Val d'Oise 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 includingPolice 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. 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 theHousing
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" 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 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 Réseau Express Régional, 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 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 theDemographics
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 and Val-de-Marne, 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).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,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 aEmployment
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, 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 (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 theHotels
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 of France, Louis XIV 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, Art Nouveau, Symbolism (arts), Symbolism, 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, Henri Matisse, 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 inPhotography
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. TheTheatre
The largest opera houses of Paris are the 19th-century Opéra Garnier (historical Opéra National de Paris, Paris Opéra) and modern Opéra Bastille; 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, 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. 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, Stéphane Mallarmé, Mérimée, Alfred de Musset, Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, 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, 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''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.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. 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 theFashion
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,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 theEducation
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, 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, Paris, Latin Quarter 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 (building), Sorbonne 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 theInfrastructure
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 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–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, 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 (Paris), 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' 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 came from cogeneration energy plants located near the outer limits of theWater 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 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, 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 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 and the city's first director of parks and gardens, Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand, created the Bois de Boulogne, Bois de Vincennes, 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 (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 MontsourisCemeteries
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 peopleInternational 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 *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 syndromeNotes
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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