Paris

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This article is about the capital city of France. For other uses, see Paris (disambiguation).
Paris (French pronunciation: [paʁi] ( listen)) is the capital and most populous city of France, with an
area of 105 square kilometres (41 square miles) and an official estimated population of 2,140,526
residents as of 1 January 2019.[1] Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of Europe's major
centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, science, as well as the arts. The City of Paris
is the centre and seat of government of the Île-de-France, or Paris Region, which has an
estimated official 2019 population of 12,213,364, or about 18 percent of the population of
France.[1] The Paris Region had a GDP of €709 billion ($808 billion) in 2017.[3] According to
the Economist Intelligence Unit Worldwide Cost of Living Survey in 2018, Paris was the second
most expensive city in the world, after Singapore, and ahead of Zurich, Hong
Kong, Oslo and Geneva.[4] Another source ranked Paris as most expensive, on a par with
Singapore and Hong Kong, in 2018.[5] The city is a major railway, highway, and air-transport hub
served by two international airports: Paris-Charles de Gaulle (the second busiest airport in
Europe) and Paris-Orly.[6][7] Opened in 1900, the city's subway system, the Paris Métro, serves
5.23 million passengers daily,[8] and is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow
Metro. Gare du Nord is the 24th busiest railway station in the world, but the first located outside
Japan, with 262 million passengers in 2015.[9]
Paris is especially known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre was the most
visited art museum in the world in 2018, with 10.2 million visitors.[10][11] The Musée
d'Orsay and Musée de l'Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art, and
the Pompidou Centre Musée National d'Art Moderne has the largest collection of modern and
contemporary art in Europe. The historical district along the Seine in the city centre is classified
as a UNESCO Heritage Site. Popular landmarks in the centre of the city include the Cathedral of
Notre Dame de Paris and the Gothic royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, both on the Île de la Cité;
the Eiffel Tower, constructed for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889; the Grand
Palais and Petit Palais, built for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900; the Arc de Triomphe on
the Champs-Élysées, and the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur on the hill of Montmartre. Paris received
23 million visitors in 2017, measured by hotel stays, with the largest numbers of foreign visitors
coming from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and China.[12][13] It was ranked as
the third most visited travel destination in the world in 2017, after Bangkok and
London.[14] The football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are
based in Paris. The 80,000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located
just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French
Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros. Paris hosted the Olympic
Games in 1900, 1924 and will host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The 1938 and 1998 FIFA World
Cups, the 2007 Rugby World Cup, and the 1960, 1984 and 2016 UEFA European
Championships were also held in the city and, every July, the Tour de France bicycle
race finishes there.

Contents

 1Etymology
 2History
o 2.1Origins
o 2.2Middle Ages to Louis XIV
o 2.318th and 19th centuries
o 2.420th and 21st centuries
 2.4.1Terrorist attacks
 3Geography
o 3.1Climate
 4Administration
o 4.1City government
o 4.2Métropole du Grand Paris
o 4.3Regional government
o 4.4National government
o 4.5Police force
 5Cityscape
o 5.1Urbanism and architecture
o 5.2Housing
o 5.3Paris and its suburbs
 6Demographics
o 6.1Migration
o 6.2Religion
 7International organisations
 8Economy
o 8.1Employment
o 8.2Unemployment
o 8.3Incomes
 9Tourism
o 9.1Monuments and attractions
o 9.2Hotels
 10Culture
o 10.1Painting and sculpture
o 10.2Photography
o 10.3Museums
o 10.4Theatre
o 10.5Literature
o 10.6Music
o 10.7Cinema
o 10.8Restaurants and cuisine
o 10.9Fashion
o 10.10Holidays and festivals
 11Education
o 11.1Libraries
 12Sports
 13Infrastructure
o 13.1Transport
 13.1.1Railways
 13.1.2Métro, RER and tramway
 13.1.3Air
 13.1.4Motorways
 13.1.5Waterways
 13.1.6Cycling
o 13.2Electricity
o 13.3Water and sanitation
o 13.4Parks and gardens
o 13.5Cemeteries
 14Healthcare
 15Media
 16International relations
o 16.1Twin towns and partner cities
o 16.2Other relationships
 17See also
 18Notes
 19References
o 19.1Citations
o 19.2Sources
 20Further reading
 21External links

Etymology[edit]
See Wiktionary for the name of Paris in various languages other than English and French.
The name "Paris" is derived from its early inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe.[15] The city's name is
not related to the Paris of Greek mythology.
Paris is often referred to as the City of Light (La Ville Lumière),[16] both because of its leading role
during the Age of Enlightenment and more literally because Paris was one of the first large
European cities to use gas street lighting on a grand scale on its boulevards and monuments.
Gas lights were installed on the Place du Carousel, Rue de Rivoli and Place Vendome in 1829.
By 1857, the Grand boulevards were lit.[17] By the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were
illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps.[18] Since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known
as Panam(e) (pronounced [panam]) in French slang.[19]
Inhabitants are known in English as "Parisians" and in French as Parisiens ([paʁizjɛ]̃ ( listen)).
They are also pejoratively called Parigots ([paʁiɡo] ( listen)).[note 1][20]

History[edit]
Main articles: History of Paris and Timeline of Paris
Origins[edit]
Main article: Lutetia
The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of
the 3rd century BC.[21][22] One of the area's major north–south trade routes crossed the Seine on
the île de la Cité; this meeting place of land and water trade routes gradually became an
important trading centre.[23] The Parisii traded with many river towns (some as far away as the
Iberian Peninsula) and minted their own coins for that purpose.[24]

Gold coins minted by the Parisii (1st century BC)

The Romans conquered the Paris Basin in 52 BC and began their settlement on Paris' Left
Bank.[25] The Roman town was originally called Lutetia (more fully, Lutetia Parisiorum, "Lutetia of
the Parisii"). It became a prosperous city with a forum, baths, temples, theatres, and
an amphitheatre.[26]
By the end of the Western Roman Empire, the town was known as Parisius, a Latin name that
would later become Paris in French.[27] Christianity was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century
AD by Saint Denis, the first Bishop of Paris: according to legend, when he refused to renounce
his faith before the Roman occupiers, he was beheaded on the hill which became known as Mons
Martyrum (Latin "Hill of Martyrs"), later "Montmartre", 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, and many French kings are buried there.[28]
Clovis the Frank, the first king of the Merovingian dynasty, made the city his capital from 508. As
the Frankish domination of Gaul began, there was a gradual immigration by the Franks to Paris
and the Parisian Francien dialects were born. Fortification of the Île-de-la-Citie failed to
avert sacking by Vikings in 845, but Paris' strategic importance—with its bridges preventing ships
from passing—was established by successful defence in the Siege of Paris (885–86). In
987, Hugh Capet, Count of Paris (comte de Paris) and Duke of the Franks (duc des Francs), was
elected King of the Franks (roi des Francs). Under the rule of the Capetian kings, Paris gradually
became the largest and most prosperous city in France.[28]
Middle Ages to Louis XIV[edit]
See also: Paris in the Middle Ages, Paris in the 16th century, and Paris in the 17th century

The Palais de la Cité and Sainte-Chapelle, viewed from the Left Bank, from the Très Riches Heures du duc
de Berry (month of June) (1410)

By the end of the 12th century, Paris had become the political, economic, religious, and cultural
capital of France.[29] The Palais de la Cité, the royal residence, was located at the western end of
the Île de la Cité. In 1163, during the reign of Louis VII, Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris,
undertook the construction of the Notre Dame Cathedral at its eastern extremity.
After the marshland between the river Seine and its slower 'dead arm' to its north was filled in
around the 10th century,[30] Paris' cultural centre began to move to the Right Bank. In 1137, a new
city marketplace (today's Les Halles) replaced the two smaller ones on the Île de la Cité and
Place de la Grève (Hotel de Ville).[31] The latter location housed the headquarters of Paris' river
trade corporation, an organisation that later became, unofficially (although formally in later years),
Paris' first municipal government.
In the late 12th century, Philip Augustus extended the Louvre 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.[32] In 1190, he
transformed Paris' former cathedral school into a student-teacher corporation that would become
the University of Paris and would draw students from all of Europe.[33][29]
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.[34]

The Hôtel de Sens, one of many remnants of the Middle Ages in Paris
During the Hundred Years' War, Paris was occupied by England-friendly Burgundian forces from
1418, before being occupied outright by the English when Henry V of England entered the French
capital in 1420;[35] in spite of a 1429 effort by Joan of Arc to liberate the city,[36] it would remain
under English occupation until 1436.
In the late 16th-century French Wars of Religion, 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.[37][38] 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 and claimed the
crown of France. This king made several improvements to the capital during his reign: he
completed the construction of Paris' first uncovered, sidewalk-lined bridge, the Pont Neuf, built a
Louvre extension connecting it to the Tuileries Palace, and created the first Paris residential
square, the Place Royale, now Place des Vosges. The king would end his life in the capital,
assassinated in a narrow street near Les Halles marketplace in 1610.[39]
During the 17th century, Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of Louis XIII, was determined to make
Paris the most beautiful city in Europe. He built five new bridges, a new chapel for the College of
Sorbonne, and a palace for himself, the Palais Cardinal, which he bequeathed to Louis XIII. After
Richelieu's death in 1642, it was the renamed the Palais-Royal.[40]
Due to the Parisian uprisings during the Fronde civil war, Louis XIV moved his court to a new
palace, Versailles, in 1682. Although no longer the capital of France, arts and sciences in the city
flourished with the Comédie-Française, the Academy of Painting, and the French Academy of
Sciences. To demonstrate that the city was safe from attack, the king had the city
walls demolished and replaced with tree-lined boulevards that would become the Grands
Boulevards of today.[41] Other marks of his reign were the Collège des Quatre-Nations, the Place
Vendôme, the Place des Victoires, and Les Invalides.[42]
18th and 19th centuries[edit]
See also: Paris in the 18th century, Paris during the Second Empire, and Haussmann's
renovation of Paris
Paris grew in population from about 400,000 in 1640 to 650,000 in 1780.[43] A new boulevard,
the Champs-Élysées, extended the city west to Étoile,[44] while the working-class neighbourhood
of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine on the eastern site of the city grew more and more crowded with
poor migrant workers from other regions of France.[45]
Paris was the centre of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity known as the Age of
Enlightenment. Diderot and d'Alembert published their Encyclopédie in 1751, and the Montgolfier
Brothers launched the first manned flight in a hot-air balloon on 21 November 1783, from the
gardens of the Château de la Muette. Paris was the financial capital of continental Europe, the
primary European centre of book publishing and fashion and the manufacture of fine furniture and
luxury goods.[46]

The storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, by Jean-Baptiste Lallemand, (Musée de la Révolution
française)

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, acquiring thousands of guns, and stormed the Bastille, a
symbol of royal authority. The first independent Paris Commune, or city council, met in the Hôtel
de Ville and, on 15 July, elected a Mayor, the astronomer Jean Sylvain Bailly.[47]

The Paris Opera was the centrepiece of Napoleon III's new Paris. The architect, Charles Garnier, described
the style simply as "Napoleon the Third."

Louis XVI and the royal family were brought to Paris and made prisoners within the Tuileries
Palace. In 1793, as the revolution turned more and more radical, the king, queen, and the mayor
were guillotined (executed) in the Reign of Terror, along with more than 16,000 others throughout
France.[48] The property of the aristocracy and the church was nationalised, and the city's
churches were closed, sold or demolished.[49] A succession of revolutionary factions ruled Paris
until 9 November 1799 (coup d'état du 18 brumaire), when Napoléon Bonaparte seized power as
First Consul.[50]

The Jardin du Luxembourg, and the Panthéon in the background

The population of Paris had dropped by 100,000 during the Revolution, but between 1799 and
1815, it surged with 160,000 new residents, reaching 660,000.[51] Napoleon Bonaparte replaced
the elected government of Paris with a prefect reporting only to him. He began erecting
monuments to military glory, including the Arc de Triomphe, and improved the neglected
infrastructure of the city with new fountains, the Canal de l'Ourcq, Père Lachaise Cemetery and
the city's first metal bridge, the Pont des Arts.[51]

Richelieu reading room, National Library of France

During the Restoration, the bridges and squares of Paris were returned to their pre-Revolution
names, but the July Revolution of 1830 in Paris, (commemorated by the July Column on Place de
la Bastille), brought a constitutional monarch, Louis Philippe I, to power. The first railway line to
Paris opened in 1837, beginning a new period of massive migration from the provinces to the
city.[51] Louis-Philippe was overthrown by a popular uprising in the streets of Paris in 1848. His
successor, Napoleon III, and the newly appointed prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène
Haussmann, launched a gigantic public works project to build wide new boulevards, a new opera
house, a central market, new aqueducts, sewers, and parks, including the Bois de
Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes.[52] In 1860, Napoleon III also annexed the surrounding towns
and created eight new arrondissements, expanding Paris to its current limits.[52]

In the 1860s, Paris streets and monuments were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, giving it the name "The
City of Light."

During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), Paris was besieged by the Prussian army. After
months of blockade, hunger, and then bombardment by the Prussians, the city was forced to
surrender on 28 January 1871. On 28 March, a revolutionary government called the Paris
Commune seized power in Paris. The Commune held power for two months, until it was harshly
suppressed by the French army during the "Bloody Week" at the end of May 1871.[53]

The Eiffel Tower, under construction in November 1888, startled Parisians – and the world – with its
modernity.

Late in the 19th century, Paris hosted two major international expositions: the 1889 Universal
Exposition, was held to mark the centennial of the French Revolution and featured the new Eiffel
Tower; and the 1900 Universal Exposition, which gave Paris the Pont Alexandre III, the Grand
Palais, the Petit Palais and the first Paris Métro line.[54] Paris became the laboratory
of Naturalism (Émile Zola) and Symbolism (Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine), and
of Impressionism in art (Courbet, Manet, Monet, Renoir).[55]
20th and 21st centuries[edit]
See also: Paris in the Belle Époque, Paris during the First World War, Paris between the Wars
(1919–1939), Paris in World War II, and History of Paris (1946–2000)
By 1901, the population of Paris had grown to 2,715,000.[56] At the beginning of the century, artists
from around the world including: Pablo Picasso, Modigliani, and Henri Matisse made Paris their
home. It was the birthplace of Fauvism, Cubism and abstract art,[57][58] and authors such as Marcel
Proust were exploring new approaches to literature.[59]
During the First World War, Paris sometimes found itself on the front line; 600 to 1,000 Paris taxis
played a small but highly important symbolic role in transporting 6,000 soldiers to the front line at
the First Battle of the Marne. The city was also bombed by Zeppelins and shelled by
German long-range guns.[60] 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, Igor Stravinsky, James Joyce, Josephine Baker, Sidney Bechet[61] Allen
Ginsberg[62] and the surrealist Salvador Dalí.[63]