Paris () is the
capital
Capital and its variations may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital
** List of national capitals
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter
Econom ...
and
largest 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 cities proper, the extent of their urban area, or their metrop ...
of
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025
[ in an area of more than ,] Paris is the fourth-most populous city in the European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
and the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2022. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance
Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and Academic discipline, discipline of money, currency, assets and Liability (financial accounting), liabilities. As a subject of study, is a field of Business administration, Business Admin ...
, diplomacy
Diplomacy is the communication by representatives of State (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, non-governmental institutions intended to influence events in the international syste ...
, commerce
Commerce is the organized Complex system, system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions that directly or indirectly contribute to the smooth, unhindered large-scale exchange (distribution through Financial transaction, transactiona ...
, culture
Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...
, fashion
Fashion is a term used interchangeably to describe the creation of clothing, footwear, Fashion accessory, accessories, cosmetics, and jewellery of different cultural aesthetics and their mix and match into Clothing, outfits that depict distinct ...
, and gastronomy
Gastronomy is the study of the relationship between Human food, 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 ver ...
. Because of its leading role in the arts
The arts or creative arts are a vast range of human practices involving creativity, creative expression, storytelling, and cultural participation. The arts encompass diverse and plural modes of thought, deeds, and existence in an extensive ...
and sciences
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
and its early adoption of extensive street lighting, Paris became known as the City of Light in the 19th century.
The City of Paris is the centre of the Île-de-France
The Île-de-France (; ; ) is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France, with an official estimated population of 12,271,794 residents on 1 January 2023. Centered on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the cou ...
region, or Paris Region, with an official estimated population of 12,271,794 inhabitants in January 2023, or about 19% of the population of France.[ The Paris Region had a nominal ]GDP
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the total market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period by a country or countries. GDP is often used to measure the economic performance o ...
of €765 billion (US$1.064 trillion when adjusted for PPP) in 2021, the highest in the European Union. 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: Charles de Gaulle Airport
Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport , also known as Roissy Airport, is the primary international airport serving Paris, the capital city of France. The airport opened in 1974 and is located in Roissy-en-France, northeast of Paris. It is named for ...
, the third-busiest airport in Europe, and Orly Airport
Paris Orly Airport (, ) is one of two international airports serving Paris, France, the other one being Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG). It is located partially in Orly and partially in Villeneuve-le-Roi, south of Paris. It serves as a sec ...
. Paris has one of the most sustainable transportation
Sustainable transport is transportation sustainable in terms of their social and environmental impacts. Components for evaluating sustainability include the particular vehicles used; the source of energy; and the infrastructure used to accommod ...
systems[ and is one of only two cities in the world that received the Sustainable Transport Award twice.][ Paris is known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the ]Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
received 8.9million visitors in 2023, on track for keeping its position as the most-visited art museum in the world. The Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) () is a museum in Paris, France, on the Rive Gauche, Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts railway station built from 1898 to 1900. The museum holds mai ...
, Musée Marmottan Monet
Musée Marmottan 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 1872 ''Impression, Sunrise''. ...
and Musée de l'Orangerie
The Musée de l'Orangerie () 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 permanent home of ...
are noted for their collections of French Impressionist
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
art. The Pompidou Centre
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
, , Musée Rodin
The Musée Rodin () of Paris, France, is an art 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 well as just ...
and Musée Picasso
Musée Picasso () is an art gallery located in the Hôtel Salé () in rue de Thorigny, in the Marais district of Paris, France, dedicated to the work of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). The museum collection includes more than ...
are noted for their collections 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
Philosophy ...
and contemporary art
Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...
. The historical district along the Seine
The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...
in the city centre has been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site
World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...
since 1991.
Paris is home to several United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
organizations including UNESCO, as well as other international organizations such as the OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an international organization, intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and international trade, wor ...
, 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
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Devel ...
, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (, BIPM) is an List of intergovernmental organizations, intergovernmental organisation, through which its 64 member-states act on measurement standards in areas including chemistry, ionising radi ...
, the International Energy Agency
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization, established in 1974, that provides policy recommendations, analysis and data on the global energy sector. The 31 member countries and 13 associatio ...
, the International Federation for Human Rights
The International Federation for Human Rights (; FIDH) is a non-governmental federation for human rights organizations. Founded in 1922, FIDH is the third oldest international human rights organization worldwide after Anti-Slavery International ...
, along with European bodies such as the European Space Agency
The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...
, the European Banking Authority
The European Banking Authority (EBA) is a regulatory agency of the European Union headquartered in La Défense, Île-de-France. Its activities include conducting stress tests on European banks to increase transparency in the European financi ...
and the European Securities and Markets Authority
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) is an agency of the European Union located in Paris.
ESMA replaced the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) on 1 January 2011. It is one of three European Supervisory Authori ...
. The football club Paris Saint-Germain
Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain () or simply PSG, is a French professional Association football, football club based in Paris. They compete in Ligue 1, the French football league system, top d ...
and the rugby union
Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...
club Stade Français
Stade Français Paris (known commonly as Stade Français, ) is a French professional rugby union club based in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The club plays in the Top 14 domestic league in France and is one of the most successful French ...
are based in Paris. The 81,000-seat Stade de France
Stade de France (, ) is the national stadium of France, located just north of Paris in the commune of Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis. Its seating capacity of 80,698 makes it the List of football stadiums in France, largest stadium i ...
, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup
The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 1 ...
, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the French Open
The French Open (), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a tennis tournament organized by the French Tennis Federation annually at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France. It is chronologically the second of the four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam ...
, an annual Grand Slam tennis tournament, on the red clay of Roland Garros. 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 ...
, the 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–January 30, 30 – Kuomintang in Ch ...
, and the 2024 Summer Olympics
The 2024 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad () and branded as Paris 2024, were an international multi-sport event held in France from 26 July to 11 August 2024, with several events started from 24 July. P ...
. The 1938
Events
January
* January 1 – state-owned enterprise, State-owned railway networks are created by merger, in France (SNCF) and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS).
* January 20 – King Farouk of Egypt marries Saf ...
and 1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...
FIFA World Cups, the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup
The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup was the eighth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international Women's association football, football championship contested by 24 List of women's national association football teams, women's ...
, the 2007
2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year.
Events
January
* January 1
**Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...
and 2023
Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...
Rugby World Cups, the 1954
Events
January
* January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting.
* January 7 – Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head ...
and 1972
Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, ...
Rugby League World Cup
The Rugby League World Cup is an international rugby league competition contested by senior men's national teams who each represent member nations of the International Rugby League who run and administer the tournament.
The tournament has be ...
s, 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
* Janu ...
, 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
2016 was designated as:
* International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly.
* International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...
UEFA European Championships were held in Paris. Every July, the Tour de France
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage cycle sport, bicycle race held primarily in France. It is the oldest and most prestigious of the three Grand Tour (cycling), Grand Tours, which include the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a ...
bicycle race finishes on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.
Etymology
The ancient oppidum
An ''oppidum'' (: ''oppida'') is a large fortified Iron Age Europe, Iron Age settlement or town. ''Oppida'' are primarily associated with the Celts, Celtic late La Tène culture, emerging during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, spread acros ...
that corresponds to the modern city of Paris was first mentioned in the mid-1st century BC by Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 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 Caesar's civil wa ...
as ''Luteciam Parisiorum'' ('Lutetia
Lutetia, ( , ; ) also known as and ( ; ; ), was a Gallo-Roman culture, Gallo–Roman town and the predecessor of modern-day Paris. Traces of an earlier Neolithic settlement () have been found nearby, and a larger settlement was established ...
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 or 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 Foot ...
root ''*lukot-'' ('mouse'), or from *''luto-'' ('marsh, swamp').
The name ''Paris'' is derived from its early inhabitants, the Parisii, a Gallic tribe from the Iron Age
The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
and the Roman period
The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...
. The meaning of the Gaulish ethnonym
An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...
remains debated. According to Xavier Delamarre
Xavier Delamarre (; born 5 June 1954) is a French linguist, lexicographer, and former diplomat. He is regarded as one of the world's foremost authorities on the Gaulish language.
With linguist Romain Garnier, Delamarre is the co-publishing edi ...
, 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 well ...
interpreted the name as 'the makers' or 'the commanders', by comparing it to the Welsh ''peryff'' ('lord, commander'), both possibly descending from a Proto-Celtic
Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the hypothetical 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 Linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed throu ...
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 (, Ogham, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ; ; or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic languages, Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive written texts. It was used from 600 to 900. The ...
''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, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
of Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...
.
Residents of the city 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'' people 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
The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...
on the Île de la Cité
The Île de la Cité (; English: City Island, "Island of the City") is one of the two natural islands on the Seine River (alongside, Île Saint-Louis) in central Paris. It spans of land. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of ...
, which 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.
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 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 Caesar's civil wa ...
conquered
Conquest involves the annexation or control of another entity's territory through war or coercion. Historically, conquests occurred frequently in the international system, and there were limited normative or legal prohibitions against conquest ...
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 ...
for the Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( ) was the era of Ancient Rome, classical Roman civilisation beginning with Overthrow of the Roman monarchy, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establis ...
in 52 BC and began the Roman 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.
In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terrain alongsid ...
. The Roman town was originally called Lutetia
Lutetia, ( , ; ) also known as and ( ; ; ), was a Gallo-Roman culture, Gallo–Roman town and the predecessor of modern-day Paris. Traces of an earlier Neolithic settlement () have been found nearby, and a larger settlement was established ...
(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 (American English, U.S. English: amphitheater) 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 ('), meani ...
.
By the end of the Western Roman Empire
In modern historiography, the Western Roman Empire was the western provinces of the Roman Empire, collectively, during any period in which they were administered separately from the eastern provinces by a separate, independent imperial court. ...
, the town was known as ''Parisius'', a Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
name that would later become ''Paris'' in French. Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century AD by Saint Denis
Denis may refer to:
People
* Saint Denis of Paris, 3rd-century Christian martyr and first bishop of Paris
* Denis the Areopagite, Biblical figure
* Denis, Bishop of Győr (13th century), Hungarian prelate
* Denis, son of Ampud (died 1236), bar ...
, 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 of Paris, 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Rive Droite, Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for its a ...
", 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 (, 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 is of singular importance historically and archite ...
, 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 around the middle of the 5th century until Pepin the Short in 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the ...
, made the city his capital from 508. As the Frankish domination of Gaul began, there was a gradual immigration by the Franks
file:Frankish arms.JPG, Aristocratic Frankish burial items from the Merovingian dynasty
The Franks ( or ; ; ) were originally a group of Germanic peoples who lived near the Rhine river, Rhine-river military border of Germania Inferior, which wa ...
to Paris and the Parisian Francien Francien may refer to:
* Francien language
* Francien, feminine given name, Dutch version of the name Francine, borne by:
** Francien de Zeeuw
Sub-lieutenant, Luitenant ter zee der 2de klasse Francien de Zeeuw (Terneuzen, 19 May 1922 – Midde ...
dialects were born. Fortification of the Île de la Cité
The Île de la Cité (; English: City Island, "Island of the City") is one of the two natural islands on the Seine River (alongside, Île Saint-Louis) in central Paris. It spans of land. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of ...
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 dynast ...
, 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 the Franks in 987, the title merged into the crown and fell into disuse. However, it was later revived ...
(''comte de Paris''), Odo of France
Odo (; c. 857 – 1 January 898) was King of West Francia from 888 to 898. He was the first king from the Robertian dynasty, the parent house of the House of Capet. Before assuming the kingship, Odo was the Count of Paris, since 882. His reign m ...
, was elected king of West Francia
In medieval historiography, West Francia (Medieval Latin: ) or the Kingdom of the West Franks () constitutes the initial stage of the Kingdom of France and extends from the year 843, from the Treaty of Verdun, to 987, the beginning of the Capet ...
. From the Capetian dynasty that began with the 987 election of Hugh Capet
Hugh Capet (; ; 941 – 24 October 996) was the King of the Franks from 987 to 996. He is the founder of and first king from the House of Capet. The son of the powerful duke Hugh the Great and his wife Hedwige of Saxony, he was elected as t ...
, Count of Paris and Duke of the Franks
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they ...
(''duc des Francs''), as king of a unified West Francia, Paris gradually became the largest and most prosperous city in France.
High 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. The Palais de la Cité
The Palais de la Cité (), located on the Seine River's Île de la Cité, is a major historic building in the centre of Paris, France. It was an occasional residence of the Kings of France from the early 6th to the 12th century and a permanent one ...
, the royal residence, was located at the western end of the Île de la Cité. In 1163, during the reign of Louis VII
Louis VII (1120 – 18 September 1180), called the Younger or the Young () to differentiate him from his father Louis VI, was King of France from 1137 to 1180. His first marriage was to Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the wealthiest and ...
, 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), ...
, bishop of Paris, undertook the construction of the Notre Dame Cathedral
Notre-Dame de Paris ( ; meaning "Cathedral of Our Lady of Paris"), often referred to simply as Notre-Dame, is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité (an island in the River Seine), in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, France. It ...
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
Les Halles (; 'The Halls') was Paris' central fresh food market. It last operated on 12 January 1973 and was replaced by an underground shopping centre and a park. The unpopular modernist development was demolished yet again in 2010, and replac ...
) replaced the two smaller ones on the Île de la Cité
The Île de la Cité (; English: City Island, "Island of the City") is one of the two natural islands on the Seine River (alongside, Île Saint-Louis) in central Paris. It spans of land. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of ...
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
Philip II (21 August 1165 – 14 July 1223), also known as Philip Augustus (), was King of France from 1180 to 1223. His predecessors had been known as kings of the Franks (Latin: ''rex Francorum''), but from 1190 onward, Philip became the firs ...
extended the Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
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
The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...
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 , the French word for "shit".
During the Hundred Years' War
The Hundred Years' War (; 1337–1453) was a conflict between the kingdoms of Kingdom of England, England and Kingdom of France, France and a civil war in France during the Late Middle Ages. It emerged from feudal disputes over the Duchy ...
, Paris was occupied by England-friendly Burgundian forces from 1418, before being occupied outright by the English when Henry V of England
Henry V (16 September 1386 – 31 August 1422), also called Henry of Monmouth, was King of England from 1413 until his death in 1422. Despite his relatively short reign, Henry's outstanding military successes in the Hundred Years' War against ...
entered the French capital in 1420; in spite of a 1429 effort by Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc ( ; ; – 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 Coronation of the French monarch, coronation of Charles VII o ...
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 were a series of civil wars between French Catholic Church, Catholics and Protestantism, Protestants (called Huguenots) from 1562 to 1598. Between two and four million people died from violence, famine or disease di ...
, 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 (, ) was a palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the Seine, directly in the west-front of the Louvre Palace. It was the Parisian residence of most French monarchs, from Henri IV to Napoleon III, until it was b ...
, and created the first Paris residential square, the Place Royale, now Place des Vosges
The Place des Vosges (), originally the 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 is the oldest ...
. 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
Les Halles (; 'The Halls') was Paris' central fresh food market. It last operated on 12 January 1973 and was replaced by an underground shopping centre and a park. The unpopular modernist development was demolished yet again in 2010, and replac ...
marketplace in 1610.
During the 17th century, Cardinal Richelieu
Armand Jean du Plessis, 1st Duke of Richelieu (9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642), commonly known as Cardinal Richelieu, was a Catholic Church in France, French Catholic prelate and statesman who had an outsized influence in civil and religi ...
, 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 () 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.
The Sorbonne was disestablished by decree of 5 April 1792, after th ...
, and a palace for himself, the Palais-Cardinal. After Richelieu's death in 1642, it was renamed the Palais-Royal
The Palais-Royal () is a former French royal palace located on Rue Saint-Honoré in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. The screened entrance court faces the Place du Palais-Royal, opposite the Louvre Palace, Louvre. Originally called the Palais-Ca ...
.
Due to the Parisian uprisings during the Fronde
The Fronde () was a series of civil wars in the Kingdom of France between 1648 and 1653, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. The government of the young King Louis XIV confronted the combined opposition ...
civil war, Louis XIV
LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reign ...
moved his court to a new palace, Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; ) is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, in the Yvelines, Yvelines Department of Île-de-France, Île-de-France region in Franc ...
, 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
The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...
. To demonstrate that the city was safe from attack, the king had the city walls
A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or earthworks to extensive military fortifications such as curtain walls with to ...
demolished and replaced with tree-lined boulevards that would become the ''Grands Boulevards
The ''grands boulevards''
The ''Grands Boulevards'' are the quintessence of the Parisian boulevards. Their origin is a plan initiated by Louis XIV's minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert in the late 1660s, of comprehensive reforms and remodeling ...
''. 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 ...
, the Place Vendôme
The Place Vendôme (), earlier known as the Place Louis-le-Grand, and also as the 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 Madelein ...
, the Place des Victoires
The Place des Victoires (; English: Victory Square, 'Square of Victories') is a circular Town square, square in central Paris, located a short distance northeast of the Palais-Royal and straddling the border between the 1st arrondissement of Pari ...
, and Les Invalides
The Hôtel des Invalides (; ), commonly called (; ), 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 well as a hospital and an old soldi ...
.
18th and 19th centuries
Paris grew in population from about 400,000 in 1640 to 650,000 in 1780. A new boulevard named the Champs-Élysées
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées (, ; ) is an Avenue (landscape), 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 ...
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 Sain ...
on the eastern side of the city grew increasingly crowded with poor migrant workers from other regions of France.
Paris was the centre of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity, known as the Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment) was a Europe, European Intellect, intellectual and Philosophy, philosophical movement active from the late 17th to early 19th century. Chiefly valuing knowledge gained th ...
. Diderot
Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominent figure during t ...
and D'Alembert
Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert ( ; ; 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanics, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was, together with Denis Diderot, a co-editor of the ''E ...
published their ''Encyclopédie
, better known as ''Encyclopédie'' (), was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It had many writers, known as the Encyclopédistes. It was edited by Denis ...
'' in 1751, before 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 Communes o ...
launched the first manned flight in a hot air balloon
A hot air balloon is a lighter-than-air aircraft consisting of a bag, called an envelope, which contains heated air. Suspended beneath is a gondola or wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule), which carri ...
on 21 November 1783. Paris was the financial capital of continental Europe, as well the primary European centre for book publishing, fashion and the manufacture of fine furniture and luxury goods. On 22 October 1797, Paris was also the site of the first parachute jump in history, by Garnerin.
In the summer of 1789, Paris became the centre stage of the French Revolution. On 14 July, a mob seized the arsenal at the Invalides
The Hôtel des Invalides (; ), commonly called (; ), 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 well as a hospital and an old sold ...
, acquiring thousands of guns, with which it stormed the Bastille, a principal symbol of royal authority. The first independent Paris Commune
The Paris Commune (, ) was a French revolutionary government that seized power in Paris on 18 March 1871 and controlled parts of the city until 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard (France), Nation ...
, or city council, met in the ''Hôtel de Ville'' and elected a Mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, 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 responsibilitie ...
, 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 ...
, on 15 July.
Louis XVI
Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; ; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765), Louis, Dauphin of France (son and heir- ...
and the royal family were brought to Paris and incarcerated in the Tuileries Palace. In 1793, as the revolution turned increasingly radical, the king, queen and mayor were beheaded by guillotine
A guillotine ( ) is an apparatus designed for effectively carrying out executions by Decapitation, beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secur ...
in the Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror (French: ''La Terreur'', literally "The Terror") was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the French First Republic, First Republic, a series of massacres and Capital punishment in France, nu ...
, along with more than 16,000 others throughout France. The property of the aristocracy and the church was nationalised
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English)
is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with ...
, 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 Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...
seized power as First Consul.
The population of Paris had dropped by 100,000 during the Revolution, but after 1799 it surged with 160,000 new residents, reaching 660,000 by 1815. Napoleon replaced the elected government of Paris with a prefect that reported directly to him. He began erecting monuments to military glory, including the Arc de Triomphe
The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile, often called simply the Arc de Triomphe, is one of the most famous monuments in Paris, France, standing at the western end of the Champs-Élysées at the centre of Place Charles de Gaulle, formerly named Plac ...
, 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 ...
, Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery (, , formerly , ) is the largest cemetery in Paris, France, at . With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world.
Buried at Père Lachaise are many famous figures in the ...
and the city's first metal bridge, the Pont des Arts
Pont, meaning "bridge" in French, may refer to:
Places France
* Pont, Côte-d'Or, in the Côte-d'Or ''département''
* Pont-Bellanger, in the Calvados ''département''
* Pont-d'Ouilly, in the Calvados ''département''
* Pont-Farcy, in the Ca ...
.
During the Restoration, 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 (), Second French Revolution, or ("Three Glorious ays), was a second French Revolution after French Revolution, the first of 1789–99. It led to the overthrow of King Cha ...
in 1830 (commemorated by the July Column
The July Column () 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 that saw the fall of Char ...
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 ...
) brought to power a constitutional monarch, Louis Philippe I
Louis Philippe I (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850), nicknamed the Citizen King, was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, the penultimate monarch of France, and the last French monarch to bear the title "King". He abdicated from his throne ...
. The first railway line to Paris opened in 1837, beginning a new period of massive migration from the provinces
A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term ''provi ...
to the city. In 1848, Louis-Philippe was overthrown by a popular uprising in the streets of Paris. His successor, Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...
, alongside the newly appointed prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann
Georges-Eugène Haussmann (; 27 March 180911 January 1891), commonly known as Baron Haussmann, 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 huge 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 that is the western half 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 the Em ...
and Bois de Vincennes
The Bois de Vincennes (), located on the eastern edge of Paris, France, 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 ...
. In 1860, Napoleon III annexed the surrounding towns and created eight new arrondissements, expanding Paris to its current limits.
During the Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 Janua ...
(1870–1871), Paris was besieged by the Prussian Army. Following several months of blockade, hunger, and then bombardment by the Prussians, the city was forced to surrender on 28 January 1871. After seizing power in Paris on 28 March, a revolutionary government known as the Paris Commune
The Paris Commune (, ) was a French revolutionary government that seized power in Paris on 18 March 1871 and controlled parts of the city until 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard (France), Nation ...
held power for two months, before being 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 Frankfur ...
" at the end of May 1871.
In the late 19th century, Paris hosted two major international expositions: the 1889 Universal Exposition, which featured the new Eiffel Tower, was held to mark the centennial of the French Revolution; and the 1900 Universal Exposition 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 ...
, the Grand Palais
The (; ), commonly known as the , is a historic site, exhibition hall and museum complex located in the 8th arrondissement of Paris between the Champs-Élysées and the Seine, France. Construction of the began in 1897 following the demolitio ...
, the and the first Paris Métro
The Paris Métro (, , or , ), short for Métropolitain (), is a rapid transit system serving the Paris metropolitan area in France. A symbol of the city, it is known for its density within the capital's territorial limits, uniform architectur ...
line. Paris became the laboratory of Naturalism (Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, ; ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of Naturalism (literature), naturalism, and an important contributor to ...
) and Symbolism
Symbolism or symbolist may refer to:
*Symbol, any object or sign that represents an idea
Arts
*Artistic symbol, an element of a literary, visual, or other work of art that represents an idea
** Color symbolism, the use of colors within various c ...
(Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics ...
and Paul Verlaine
Paul-Marie Verlaine ( ; ; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolism (movement), Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the ''fin de siècle'' ...
), and of Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
in art ( Courbet, Manet, Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, ; ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of Impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his ...
, 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 ...
).
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 Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
, Modigliani, and Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...
made Paris their home. It was the birthplace of Fauvism
Fauvism ( ) is a style of painting and an art movement that emerged in France at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the style of (, ''the wild beasts''), a group of modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong col ...
, Cubism
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture.
Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...
and abstract art
Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a Composition (visual arts), composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. ''Abstract art'', ''non-figurative art'', ''non- ...
, and authors such as Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...
were exploring new approaches to literature.
During the First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, 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 or known in France as the Miracle on the Marne () was a battle of the First World War fought from the 5th to the 12th September 1914. The German army invaded France with a plan for winning the war in 40 days by oc ...
. The city was also bombed by Zeppelin
A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor 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. 155� ...
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. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...
, Igor Stravinsky, James Joyce, Josephine Baker, Eva Kotchever, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Sidney Bechet and 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'', 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. The anti-independence Organisation armée secrète (OAS) 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
The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) () is a museum in Paris, France, on the Rive Gauche, Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts railway station built from 1898 to 1900. The museum holds mai ...
(1986); President François Mitterrand 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. He was re-elected in March 2008. In 2007, in an effort to reduce car traffic, he introduced the Vélib', a system which rents bicycles. 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.
On 22 April 2016, the Paris Agreement was signed by 196 nations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in an aim to limit the effects of climate change below 2 °C.
Geography
Location
Paris is located in northern central France, in a north-bending arc of the river Seine
The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...
, whose crest includes two islands, the Île Saint-Louis and the larger Île de la Cité
The Île de la Cité (; English: City Island, "Island of the City") is one of the two natural islands on the Seine River (alongside, Île Saint-Louis) in central Paris. It spans of land. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of ...
, which form the oldest part of Paris. The river's mouth on the English Channel (''La Manche'') is about downstream from Paris. Paris is spread widely on both banks of the river. Overall, Paris is relatively flat, and the lowest point is Above mean sea level, 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 of Paris, 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Rive Droite, Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for its a ...
at .
Excluding the outlying parks of Bois de Boulogne
The Bois de Boulogne (, "Boulogne woodland") is a large public park that is the western half 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 the Em ...
and Bois de Vincennes
The Bois de Vincennes (), located on the eastern edge of Paris, France, 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 ...
, Paris covers an oval measuring about in area, enclosed by the ring road, the Boulevard Périphérique. Paris' last major annexation of outlying territories in 1860 gave it its modern form, and 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 annexed to the city, bringing its area to about . The metropolitan area is .[
Measured from the Kilometre zero#France, 'point zero' in front of its Notre-Dame de Paris, Notre-Dame cathedral, Paris by road is southeast of London, south of Calais, southwest of Brussels, north of Marseille, northeast of Nantes, and southeast of Rouen.
]
Climate
Paris has an oceanic climate within the Köppen climate classification, typical of western Europe. This climate type features cool winters, with frequent rain and overcast skies, and mild to warm summers. Very hot and very cold temperatures and weather extremes are rare in this type of climate.
Summer days are usually mild and pleasant, with average temperatures between , and a fair amount of sunshine. Each year 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 cool 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 quite common, but the temperature seldom dips below . Paris 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. Paris is known for intermittent, abrupt, heavy showers. The highest recorded temperature was , on 25 July 2019. 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. In 1974, Paris was granted municipal autonomy by the National Assembly. The first modern elected mayor of Paris was Jacques Chirac, elected 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, in April 2014, and re-elected 2020 Paris municipal election, in 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 elects the mayor. The council is composed of 163 members. Each arrondissement is allocated a number of seats dependent upon its population, from 10 members for each of the least-populated arrondissements, to 34 members for the most populated. 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 do not win an absolute majority of the vote.
Prior to the 2020 Paris municipal election, each of Paris's 20 arrondissements had its own town hall and a directly elected council (), which elects an arrondissement mayor. The council of each arrondissement is composed of members of the Conseil de Paris, and members who serve only on the council of the arrondissement. The number of deputy mayors in each arrondissement varies depending upon its population. As of 1996, there were 20 arrondissement mayors and 120 deputy mayors. The creation of Paris Centre, a unified administrative division with a single mayor covering the first four arrondissements, took effect with the said 2020 election. The other 16 arrondissements continue to have their own mayors.
Métropole du Grand Paris
In January 2016, the Grand Paris, Métropole du Grand Paris, or simply Grand Paris, came into existence. 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 . In 2015, it had a population of 6.945 million people.
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. In January 2016, Patrick Ollier was elected the first president of the metropolitan council. 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, composed of 209 members representing its different communes. In 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. The Prime Minister of France, Prime Minister's seat is at the Hôtel Matignon. Government ministries are located in various parts of the city, many 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. The more important lower house, the National Assembly (France), National Assembly, meets in the Palais Bourbon. The List of presidents of the Senate of France, President of the Senate, the second-highest public official in France, with 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''. 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
The Palais-Royal () is a former French royal palace located on Rue Saint-Honoré in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. The screened entrance court faces the Place du Palais-Royal, opposite the Louvre Palace, Louvre. Originally called the Palais-Ca ...
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, meets in the Montpensier wing of the Palais Royal.
Paris and its region host the headquarters of several international organisations, including UNESCO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Chamber of Commerce, the Paris Club, the European Space Agency
The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...
, the International Energy Agency
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization, established in 1974, that provides policy recommendations, analysis and data on the global energy sector. The 31 member countries and 13 associatio ...
, 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 (, BIPM) is an List of intergovernmental organizations, intergovernmental organisation, through which its 64 member-states act on measurement standards in areas including chemistry, ionising radi ...
, the Bureau of International Expositions, International Exhibition Bureau, and the International Federation for Human Rights
The International Federation for Human Rights (; FIDH) is a non-governmental federation for human rights organizations. Founded in 1922, FIDH is the third oldest international human rights organization worldwide after Anti-Slavery International ...
.
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
The Île de la Cité (; English: City Island, "Island of the City") is one of the two natural islands on the Seine River (alongside, Île Saint-Louis) in central Paris. It spans of land. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of ...
.
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). Vans of CRS agents are frequently seen in the centre of Paris when there are demonstrations and public events. The police are supported by the National Gendarmerie, a branch of the French Armed Forces. Their police operations are supervised by the Ministry of the Interior.
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. As a result, even its earliest history is 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 plays a large part in giving Paris the reputation it has today. At its origin, before the Middle Ages, Paris was composed of several islands and sandbanks in a bend of the Seine
The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...
. Of those, two remain today: Île Saint-Louis and the Île de la Cité
The Île de la Cité (; English: City Island, "Island of the City") is one of the two natural islands on the Seine River (alongside, Île Saint-Louis) in central Paris. It spans of land. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of ...
. 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 President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...
and his Prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, Baron Haussmann. Between Haussmann's renovation of Paris, 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 built the major parks around central Paris. The high residential population of the city centre makes Paris much different from most other major western 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. The Tour Montparnasse was both Paris's and France's tallest building since 1973, Since 2011, this record has been held by the La Défense quarter Tour First tower in Courbevoie.
Housing
In 2018, the most expensive residential street in Paris by average price per square metre, was Avenue Montaigne, at 22,372 euros per square metre. In 2011, the number of residences in the City of Paris was . Among these, (85.9 percent) were main residences, (6.8 percent) were secondary residences, and the remaining 7.3 percent were empty.
Sixty-two percent of buildings date from 1949 and before, with 20 percent built between 1949 and 1974. 18 percent of Paris buildings were built after 1974. 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, which is 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 wider Île-de-France region. Most of Paris' population rent their residence. In 2017, social or public housing was 19.9 percent Paris' residences. Its distribution varies widely throughout Paris, from 2.6 percent of the housing in the wealthy 7th arrondissement, to 39.9 percent in the 19th arrondissement.
In February 2019, 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.
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 (; ; ) is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France, with an official estimated population of 12,271,794 residents on 1 January 2023. Centered on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the cou ...
" 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 in 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 resources.
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 Paris, 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 the Seine
The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...
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: the wealthy live in the west and southwest, and the middle-to-working classes are in the north and east. The remaining areas are mostly middle-class, dotted with wealthy islands in areas of historical importance, namely Saint-Maur-des-Fossés to the east and Enghien-les-Bains to the north of Paris.
Demographics
The population of the City of Paris was 2,102,650 in January 2023, down from 2,165,423 in January 2022, according to the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, INSEE, the French statistical agency. Between 2013 and 2023, the population fell by 122,919, or about five percent. The Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, declared that this illustrated the "de-densification" of the city, creating more green space and less crowding. 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 Paris, 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, after 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 are 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. Paris'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 further, 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.[
In 2012, according to Eurostat, the EU statistical agency, in 2012 the Commune of Paris was the most densely populated city in the European Union. There were 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. In 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
Under French law, people born in foreign countries with no French citizenship at birth are defined as immigrants. In 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.
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 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 (; ; ) is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France, with an official estimated population of 12,271,794 residents on 1 January 2023. Centered on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the cou ...
).
In 2020–2021, about 6 million people, or 41% of the population of the Paris Region, were either immigrants (21%) or had at least one immigrant parent (20%). These figures do not include French people born in Overseas France and their direct descendants.
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. In 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.
In 2014, the Jewish population of the Paris Region was estimated to be 282,000, the largest concentration of Jews in the world outside of Israel and the United States.
Economy
The economy of the City of Paris is based largely on services and commerce. Of the 390,480 enterprises in Paris, 80.6 percent are engaged in commerce, transportation, and diverse services, 6.5 percent in construction, and 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''. 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 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. 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.
In 2021, the top French companies listed in the Fortune Global 500 all have their headquarters in the Paris Region. Six are in the central business district of the City of Paris, four are close to the city in the Hauts-de-Seine Department, three are in La Défense and one is 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 total market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period by a country or countries. GDP is often used to measure the economic performance o ...
of euro, €765 billion, of which €253 billion was in Paris city. In 2021, its GDP ranked first among the metropolitan regions of the EU, and its per-capita GDP PPP was the 8th highest. While the Paris region's population accounted for 18.8 percent of metropolitan France in 2019,[ the Paris region's GDP accounted for 32 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 , ''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. In 2018, Paris was the most expensive city in the world with Singapore and Hong Kong. Station F is a business incubator for startups, noted as the world's largest startup facility.
Employment and income
In 2007, the majority of Paris's salaried employees filled 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 in the retail trade. Fourteen percent of Parisians worked 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. 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. Paris has around 75,000 manufacturing workers, most of which are in the textile, clothing, leather goods, and shoe trades. In 2015, 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. In 2014, the industry as a whole suffered a major loss, with the closing of a major Aulnay-sous-Bois Citroën assembly plant.
The southern Essonne department specialises in science and technology. 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.
Incomes are higher in the Western part of Paris 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 Paris earned less than €977 per month, the official poverty line. Twenty-five percent of residents in the 19th arrondissement lived below the poverty line. In Paris' wealthiest neighbourhood, the 7th arrondissement, 7 percent lived below the poverty line. The unemployment rate in Paris in the 4th trimester of 2021 was six percent, compared with 7.4 percent in the whole of France. This was the lowest rate in thirteen years.
Tourism
As of 2024, Paris was considered the most attractive city in the world 4 years in a row, by the Euromonitor Global Cities Destination Index. However, by the number of tourists coming from other countries it was only in the 9th place.
Tourism continued to recover in the Paris region in 2022, increasing to 44 million visitors, an increase of 95 percent over 2021, but still 13 percent lower than in 2019.
Grand Paris, Greater Paris, comprising Paris and its three surrounding departments, received a record 38 million visitors in 2019, measured by hotel arrivals. These included 12.2 million French visitors. Of the 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).[
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). In 2016, 393,008 workers in Greater Paris, or 12.4 percent of the total workforce, were engaged in tourism-related sectors such as hotels, catering, transport and leisure.][
Paris' top cultural attractions in 2022 were the Louvre Museum (7.7 million visitors), the Eiffel Tower (5.8 million visitors), the ]Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) () is a museum in Paris, France, on the Rive Gauche, Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts railway station built from 1898 to 1900. The museum holds mai ...
(3.27 million visitors) and the Centre Pompidou (3 million visitors).
In 2019, Greater Paris had 2,056 hotels, including 94 five-star hotels, with a total of 121,646 rooms.[ In 2019, in addition to the hotels, 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.
A minuscule fraction of foreign visitors suffer from Paris syndrome, when their experiences do not meet expectations.
]
Culture
Painting and sculpture
For centuries, Paris has attracted artists from around the world. 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
LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reign ...
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. 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 visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), 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:
*Symbol, any object or sign that represents an idea
Arts
*Artistic symbol, an element of a literary, visual, or other work of art that represents an idea
** Color symbolism, the use of colors within various c ...
, Fauvism
Fauvism ( ) is a style of painting and an art movement that emerged in France at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the style of (, ''the wild beasts''), a group of modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong col ...
, Cubism
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture.
Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...
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 Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
, Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...
, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Henri Rousseau, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani and many others became associated with Paris.
The most prestigious sculptors who made their reputation in Paris in the modern era are Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (Statue of Liberty), 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.
Museums
The Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
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 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
The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) () is a museum in Paris, France, on the Rive Gauche, Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts railway station built from 1898 to 1900. The museum holds mai ...
, 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) and one of the oldest, the Musée des Arts et Métiers (opened in 1794). 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 , the art museum of the City of Paris (518,000).
The Musée de l'Orangerie
The Musée de l'Orangerie () 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 permanent home of ...
, 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. 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
Musée Picasso () is an art gallery located in the Hôtel Salé () in rue de Thorigny, in the Marais district of Paris, France, dedicated to the work of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). The museum collection includes more than ...
, the Musée Rodin
The Musée Rodin () of Paris, France, is an art 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 well as just ...
and the Musée national Eugène Delacroix.
The military history of France is presented by displays at the Musée de l'Armée at Les Invalides
The Hôtel des Invalides (; ), commonly called (; ), 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 well as a hospital and an old soldi ...
. 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 that is the western half 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 the Em ...
.
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 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
The Palais-Royal () is a former French royal palace located on Rue Saint-Honoré in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. The screened entrance court faces the Place du Palais-Royal, opposite the Louvre Palace, Louvre. Originally called the Palais-Ca ...
. Other famous theatres include the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, 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 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. 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 . 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, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics ...
, Stéphane Mallarmé, Mérimée, Alfred de Musset, Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...
, Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, ; ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of Naturalism (literature), naturalism, and an important contributor to ...
, 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'', 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. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...
, Samuel Beckett, Miguel Ángel Asturias, Alejo Carpentier and, Arturo Uslar Pietri. The winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, Patrick Modiano, 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. 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, Charles Gounod, Camille Saint-Saëns, Léo Delibes and Jules Massenet, 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, Erik Satie and Maurice Ravel. Several foreign-born composers, such as Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, Jacques Offenbach, Niccolò Paganini, and Igor Stravinsky, 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. 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, and 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 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, including 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. December 2015 was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Edith Piaf—widely regarded as France's national Chanson, chanteuse and one of France's greatest international stars.
Paris has a big French hip hop, hip hop scene. This music became popular during the 1980s.
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. 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.
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
The Palais-Royal () is a former French royal palace located on Rue Saint-Honoré in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. The screened entrance court faces the Place du Palais-Royal, opposite the Louvre Palace, Louvre. Originally called the Palais-Ca ...
by Antoine Beauvilliers; 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. 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 (landscape), 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 ...
, and the Tour d'Argent on the Quai de la Tournelle.
Today, owing 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, 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.
Paris has several other kinds of traditional eating places. The Coffeehouse, café arrived in Paris in the 17th century, 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 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. Real bistros are increasingly rare in Paris, due to rising costs, competition, 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. 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. 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 (landscape), 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 ...
and the Seine.
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.
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'' (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, and is headquartered in Paris. France 24 is a television news channel owned and operated by the French government, and is based in Paris. France Diplomatie, owned and operated by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (France), Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, pertains solely to diplomatic news and occurrences.
The most-viewed network in France, TF1, is in nearby Boulogne-Billancourt. France 2, France 3, Canal+ (French TV channel), 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.
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 (landscape), 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 ...
, from the Arc de Triomphe
The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile, often called simply the Arc de Triomphe, is one of the most famous monuments in Paris, France, standing at the western end of the Champs-Élysées at the centre of Place Charles de Gaulle, formerly named Plac ...
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.
Other yearly festivals include Paris-Plages, a festive summertime event when the Right Bank of the Seine is converted into a temporary beach; 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.
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.
The Bibliothèque Forney, 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, designed by Henri Labrouste and built in the mid-1800s, contains a rare book and manuscript division. Bibliothèque Mazarine is the oldest public library in France. The Médiathèque Musicale Mahler opened in 1986 and contains collections related to music. The François Mitterrand Library (nicknamed ''Très Grande Bibliothèque'') 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 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 the rugby union
Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...
clubs Stade Français
Stade Français Paris (known commonly as Stade Français, ) is a French professional rugby union club based in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The club plays in the Top 14 domestic league in France and is one of the most successful French ...
and Racing 92 (the latter based in Nanterre, a western inner suburb just outside the city proper). The 80,000-seat Stade de France
Stade de France (, ) is the national stadium of France, located just north of Paris in the commune of Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis. Its seating capacity of 80,698 makes it the List of football stadiums in France, largest stadium i ...
, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup
The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 1 ...
, 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. The city and closer suburbs have a number of other professional and amateur football clubs: Paris FC, Red Star FC, US Créteil-Lusitanos, US Créteil, Racing Club de France Football, RCF Paris and Stade Français (association football), Stade Français Football.
Rugby league is not a popular sport in Paris compared to other areas of France. Despite this, the capital has hosted several major events in the sport's history since the country's first game, and exhibition match between the Australia national rugby league team, Australia national team and a Rugby Football League, British League Select XIII, in December 1933. The Rugby League World Cup
The Rugby League World Cup is an international rugby league competition contested by senior men's national teams who each represent member nations of the International Rugby League who run and administer the tournament.
The tournament has be ...
was first held in 1954
Events
January
* January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting.
* January 7 – Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head ...
with the Parc des Princes#Second stadium (1932–1972), Parc des Princes hosting the opening match and the 1954 Rugby League World Cup final, final in which finished as runners-up to . The newly rebuild Parc des Princes was later used for a group game of the 1972 Rugby League World Cup. In 1996 and 1997, football club Paris Saint-Germain
Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain () or simply PSG, is a French professional Association football, football club based in Paris. They compete in Ligue 1, the French football league system, top d ...
entered created Paris Saint-Germain Rugby League, a rugby league club to participate in the Super League. In 2006, Catalans Dragons became the first French side to enter the British rugby league system following PSG's withdrawal. In 2026 they will move their home game against Wigan Warriors (world champions at time of planning) to Paris to celebrate 20 years of French clubs in the British game.
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 ...
, 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–January 30, 30 – Kuomintang in Ch ...
and 2024 Summer Olympics
The 2024 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad () and branded as Paris 2024, were an international multi-sport event held in France from 26 July to 11 August 2024, with several events started from 24 July. P ...
. The city also bid for the 1992 Summer Olympics, 1992, 2008 Summer Olympics, 2008, and 2012 Summer Olympics, 2012 Olympic Games but lost to Barcelona, Beijing, and London.
The city hosted the finals of the 1938 FIFA World Cup final, 1938 FIFA World Cup, at the Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir, Stade Olympique de Colombes, and the 1998 FIFA World Cup final, 1998 FIFA World Cup, 2007 Rugby World Cup Final, 2007 Rugby World Cup and 2023 Rugby World Cup final, 2023 Rugby World Cup, at the Stade de France. Paris hosted as well as the finals of the 1960 European Nations' Cup final, 1960, UEFA Euro 1984 final, 1984 (both at Parc des Princes stadium) and UEFA Euro 2016 final, 2016 UEFA European Championships. 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.
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 cycle sport, bicycle race held primarily in France. It is the oldest and most prestigious of the three Grand Tour (cycling), Grand Tours, which include the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a ...
, 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
The French Open (), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a tennis tournament organized by the French Tennis Federation annually at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France. It is chronologically the second of the four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam ...
, held every year on the red clay of the Roland Garros National Tennis Centre, is one of the four Grand Slam events of the world professional tennis tour. The 17,000-seat AccorHotels Arena, Bercy Arena is the venue for the annual Paris Masters tennis tournament. 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.
Basketball teams Levallois Sporting Club Basket, Levallois SCB and Paris Basket Racing merged in 2007 to create club Metropolitans 92, which plays some of its games at the Stade Pierre de Coubertin (Paris), Stade Pierre de Coubertin. Another top-level professional team, Nanterre 92, plays in Nanterre. Founded in 2018, Paris Basketball has seen rapid growth to success, winning the 2023–24 EuroCup Basketball, 2023–24 EuroCup.
Professional handball club Paris Saint-Germain Handball, Paris Saint-Germain (the handball department of Paris Saint-Germain Football Club) plays in the highest tier of French handball, the LNH Division 1.
In 2023, a professional American football team, the Paris Musketeers, were formed in the city joining the European League of Football.
Infrastructure
Transport
Paris is a major rail, highway, and air transport hub. The Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) oversees the transit network in the region. The syndicate coordinates public transport. The RATP Group, RATP operates 347 Bus (RATP), bus lines, the Paris Métro, Métro, eight tramway lines, and sections of the RER. The SNCF operates suburban rails, one tramway line and the other sections of the RER. The Optile consortium of private operators manages 1,176 bus lines.
Paris has one of the most Sustainable transport, sustainable transportation systems in the world, and is one of only two cities that received the Sustainable Transport Award twice, in 2008 and 2023. In 2022–2023, 53.3% of trips in Paris were made on foot, 30% on public transport, 11.2% on bicycles and 4.3% on cars. Bike lanes are being doubled, and electric car incentives are being created. Paris is banning the most polluting automobiles from key districts. The concept of the 15-minute city was created by Carlos Moreno (urbanist) a professor from Paris and began to be implemented by its mayor Anne Hidalgo.
Walking
Walking is the most popular mode of transportation in Paris accounting for 53% of all trips in 2024. In the Grand Paris metropolis walking is also the most popular way of moving. The number of trips made by foot increased by 50% from the year 2000 to 2018. Paris is considered a walkable city and try to increase walkability more.
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: high-speed rail lines (TGV, Eurostar, Intercity Express, Frecciarossa), normal speed trains (Intercités, Intercités de nuit, Nightjet, Transport express régional, TER), and the suburban rails (Transilien). The Transilien is the commuter rail network serving Île-de-France, Paris region, through 9 lines, 392 stations and of rails.
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. In 2015, it carried about 5.23 million passengers daily. There are 16 lines, 321 stations (405 stops) and of rails. Superimposed on this is a "Réseau Express Régional, regional express network", the RER, whose five lines, 257 stops and of rails connect Paris to more distant parts of the urban area. With over 1.4 million passengers per day RER A is the busiest metro line in Europe. The Île-de-France, Paris region is served by Tramways in Île-de-France, a light rail network, the tramway. Opened since 1992, fifteen lines are operational. The network is long, with 283 stations.
Air
Paris is a major international air transport hub, and the World's busiest city airport systems by passenger traffic, 5th busiest airport system in the world. Paris is served by three commercial international airports: Charles de Gaulle Airport
Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport , also known as Roissy Airport, is the primary international airport serving Paris, the capital city of France. The airport opened in 1974 and is located in Roissy-en-France, northeast of Paris. It is named for ...
, Orly Airport
Paris Orly Airport (, ) is one of two international airports serving Paris, France, the other one being Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG). It is located partially in Orly and partially in Villeneuve-le-Roi, south of Paris. It serves as a sec ...
and Beauvais–Tillé Airport. In 2019, these three airports recorded traffic of 112 million passengers. There is also one general aviation airport, Paris–Le Bourget Airport, historically the oldest Parisian airport and closest to the city centre, which is now used only for private business flights and air shows. 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. In 2023, it was the List of busiest airports by international passenger traffic, 4th 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.
Motorways
Paris is 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 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. Most of the cargo is handled by the 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, and ''bande cyclable'', a bicycle lane denoted by a painted path on the road). Some of specially marked bus lanes are free for use by cyclists, with a protective barrier against encroachments from vehicles. Cyclists have the right to ride in both directions on certain one-way streets. Paris has a community bicycle program, bike sharing system called Vélib' with more than 20,000 public bicycles distributed at 1,800 parking stations.
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 (; ; ) is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France, with an official estimated population of 12,271,794 residents on 1 January 2023. Centered on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the cou ...
came from cogeneration energy plants. 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. 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 wood pellets.
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 ...
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 President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...
, oversaw the construction of a series of new aqueducts that brought water from locations all around the city to several reservoirs.
From then on, the new reservoir system became Paris's principal source of drinking water. 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 water-supply network. Today Paris has more than of underground sewers.
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 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 (, ) was a palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the Seine, directly in the west-front of the Louvre Palace. It was the Parisian residence of most French monarchs, from Henri IV to Napoleon III, until it was b ...
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.
Between 1853 and 1870, Emperor Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...
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 that is the western half 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 the Em ...
, Bois de Vincennes
The Bois de Vincennes (), located on the eastern edge of Paris, France, 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 ...
, Parc Montsouris and Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, located at the four compass points around Paris, 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), has floating gardens.
Cemeteries
During the Roman era, Paris' main cemetery was located on the outskirts of the Rive Gauche, left bank settlement. 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. When inner-city burials were condemned from 1786, the contents of all Paris' parish cemeteries were transferred to a renovated section of Mines of Paris, Paris's stone mines, today place Denfert-Rochereau in the 14th arrondissement.
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. 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. Famous people buried in Parisian cemeteries include Oscar Wilde, Frédéric Chopin, Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf and Serge Gainsbourg.
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. 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 students in around 9,000 primary, secondary, and higher education schools and institutions.
The University of Paris
The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...
, founded in the 12th century, is often called the University of Paris, Sorbonne after one of its original medieval colleges. In 1970, it was broken up into List of universities and institutions in the Paris region, thirteen autonomous universities, 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. 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.
In 2025, Paris is the home of prestigious universities in science and technology (Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, Polytechnic Institute of Paris, Paris Cité University, Paris-Saclay University, Sorbonne University), political science (Sciences Po), management (HEC Paris, ESSEC Business School, ESCP Business School, INSEAD) as well as multidisciplinary universities (Paris Sciences et Lettres University).
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. 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 Paris 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.
International relations
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 European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...
, the International Energy Agency
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization, established in 1974, that provides policy recommendations, analysis and data on the global energy sector. The 31 member countries and 13 associatio ...
, European Securities and Markets Authority
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) is an agency of the European Union located in Paris.
ESMA replaced the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) on 1 January 2011. It is one of three European Supervisory Authori ...
and the European Banking Authority
The European Banking Authority (EBA) is a regulatory agency of the European Union headquartered in La Défense, Île-de-France. Its activities include conducting stress tests on European banks to increase transparency in the European financi ...
.
Twin towns – sister cities
Since April 1956, Paris is exclusively and reciprocally Sister city, twinned with:
*Rome, Italy
: ''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, 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
*Parish and Civil Registers in Paris
Notes
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{{Authority control
Paris,
Capitals in Europe
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Gallia Lugdunensis
Populated places established in the 3rd century BC
Prefectures in France