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 a population of 2,206,488.
Since the 17th century, Paris has been one
of Europe's major centres of finance, commerce,
fashion, science, and the arts.
The City of Paris is the center and seat of
government of the Ile-de-France, or Paris
Region, which has an estimated official 2018
population of 12,246,234 persons, or 18.2
percent of the population of France. The Paris
Region had a GDP of €681 billion (US$850
billion) in 2016, accounting for 31 per cent
of the GDP of France. According to the Economist
Intelligence Unit Worldwide Cost of Living
Survey in 2018, Paris was the second-most
expensive city in the world, behind Singapore
and ahead of Zurich, Hong Kong, Oslo and Geneva.The
city is a major rail, highway, and air-transport
hub served by two international airports:
Paris-Charles de Gaulle (the second busiest
airport in Europe after London Heathrow Airport
with 69.5 million passengers in 2017) and
Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the city's subway
system, the Paris Métro, serves 5.23 million
passengers daily, and is the second busiest
metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro.
Paris's Gare du Nord is one of the ten busiest
railway stations in the world, with 262 million
passengers in 2015.Paris is especially known
for its museums and architectural landmarks:
the Louvre was the most visited art museum
in the world in 2017, with 8.1 million visitors.
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 UK, Germany and
China. It was ranked as the third most visited
travel destination in the world in 2017, after
Bangkok and London.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.
== Etymology ==
The name "Paris" is derived from its early
inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. 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), both because of
its leading role during the Age of Enlightenment,
and more literally because Paris was one of
the first European cities to adopt gas street
lighting. In the 1860s, the boulevards and
streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000
gas lamps. Since the late 19th century, Paris
has also been known as Panam(e) (pronounced
[panam]) in French slang.Inhabitants are known
in English as "Parisians" and in French as
Parisiens ([paʁizjɛ̃] ( listen)). They
are also pejoratively called Parigots ([paʁiɡo]
( listen)).
== History ==
=== 
Origins ===
The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones,
inhabited the Paris area from around the middle
of the 3rd century BC. One of the area's major
north–south trade routes crossed the Seine
on the île de la Cité; this meeting place
of land and water trade routes gradually became
an important trading centre. The Parisii traded
with many river towns (some as far away as
the Iberian Peninsula) and minted their own
coins for that purpose.
The Romans conquered the Paris Basin in 52
BC and began their settlement on Paris's Left
Bank. 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.By the end of the Western
Roman Empire, the town was known as Parisius,
a Latin name that would later become Paris
in French. 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.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's 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.
=== 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 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, Paris's
cultural centre began to move to the Right
Bank. In 1137, a new city marketplace (today's
Les Halles) replaced the two smaller ones
on the Île de la Cité and Place de la Grève
(Hotel de Ville). The latter location housed
the headquarters of Paris's river trade corporation,
an organisation that later became, unofficially
(although formally in later years), Paris's
first municipal government.
In the late 12th century, Philip Augustus
extended the Louvre 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 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.During the
Hundred Years' War, Paris was occupied by
England-friendly Burgundian forces from 1418,
before being occupied outright by the English
when Henry V of England entered the French
capital in 1420; in spite of a 1429 effort
by Joan of Arc to liberate the city, 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. 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's 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.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.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. Other marks of his reign were the
Collège des Quatre-Nations, the Place Vendôme,
the Place des Victoires, and Les Invalides.
=== 18th and 19th centuries ===
Paris grew in population from about 400,000
in 1640 to 650,000 in 1780. A new boulevard,
the Champs-Élysées, extended the city west
to Étoile, 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.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.
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.
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, along with more
than 16,000 others (throughout France), during
the Reign of Terror. The property of the aristocracy
and the church was nationalised, and the city's
churches were closed, sold or demolished.
A succession of revolutionary factions ruled
Paris until 9 November 1799 (coup d'état
du 18 brumaire), when Napoléon Bonaparte
seized power as First Consul.
The population of Paris had dropped by 100,000
during the Revolution, but between 1799 and
1815, it surged with 160,000 new residents,
reaching 660,000. Napoleon Bonaparte 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.
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.
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. In 1860, Napoleon III
also annexed the surrounding towns and created
eight new arrondissements, expanding Paris
to its current limits.
During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871),
Paris was besieged by the Prussian army. After
months of blockade, hunger, and then bombardment
by the Prussians, the city was forced to surrender
on 28 January 1871. On 28 March, a revolutionary
government called the Paris Commune 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.
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. Paris became
the laboratory of Naturalism (Émile Zola)
and Symbolism (Charles Baudelaire and Paul
Verlaine), and of Impressionism in art (Courbet,
Manet, Monet, Renoir).
=== 20th and 21st centuries ===
By 1901, the population of Paris had grown
to 2,715,000. 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, and authors
such as Marcel Proust were exploring new approaches
to literature.During the First World War,
Paris sometimes found itself on the front
line; 600 to 1,000 Paris taxis played a small
but highly important symbolic role in transporting
6,000 soldiers to the front line at the First
Battle of the Marne. The city was also bombed
by Zeppelins and shelled by German 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,
Igor Stravinsky, James Joyce, Josephine Baker,
Sidney Bechet and the surrealist Salvador
Dalí.In the years after the peace conference,
the city was also home to growing numbers
of students and activists from 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 (Vélodrome
d'Hiver), from which they were transported
by train to the extermination camp at Auschwitz.
None of the children came back. On 25 August
1944, the city was liberated by the French
2nd Armoured Division and the 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.In the 1950s and the 1960s,
Paris became one front of the Algerian War
for independence; in August 1961, the pro-independence
FLN targeted and killed 11 Paris policemen,
leading to the imposition of a curfew on Muslims
of Algeria (who, at that time, were French
citizens). On 17 October 1961, an unauthorised
but peaceful protest demonstration of Algerians
against the curfew led to violent confrontations
between the police and demonstrators, in which
at least 40 people were killed, including
some thrown into the Seine. The anti-independence
Organisation armée secrète (OAS), for their
part, carried out a series of bombings in
Paris throughout 1961 and 1962.In May 1968,
protesting students occupied the Sorbonne
and put up barricades in the 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 Maine-Montparnasse, the tallest building
in the city at 57 storeys and 210 metres (689
feet) high, was built between 1969 and 1973.
It was highly controversial, and it remains
the only building in the centre of the city
over 32 storeys high. The population of Paris
dropped from 2,850,000 in 1954 to 2,152,000
in 1990, as middle-class families moved to
the suburbs. A suburban railway network, the
RER (Réseau Express Régional), was built
to complement the Métro, and the Périphérique
expressway encircling the city, was completed
in 1973.Most of the postwar's Presidents of
the Fifth Republic wanted to leave their own
monuments in Paris; President Georges Pompidou
started the Centre Georges Pompidou (1977),
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing began the Musée
d'Orsay (1986); President François Mitterrand,
in power for 14 years, built the Opéra Bastille
(1985–1989), the new site of the Bibliothèque
nationale de France (1996), the Arche de la
Défense (1985–1989), and the Louvre Pyramid
with its underground courtyard (1983–1989);
Jacques Chirac (2006), the Musée du quai
Branly.In the early 21st century, the population
of Paris began to increase slowly again, as
more young people moved into the city. It
reached 2.25 million in 2011. In March 2001,
Bertrand Delanoë became the first Socialist
Mayor of Paris. In 2007, in an effort to reduce
car traffic in the city, he introduced the
Vélib', a system which rents bicycles for
the use of local residents and visitors. Bertrand
Delanoë also transformed a section of the
highway along the Left Bank of the Seine into
an urban promenade and park, the Promenade
des Berges de la Seine, which he inaugurated
in June 2013.In 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy
launched the Grand Paris project, to integrate
Paris more closely with the towns in the region
around it. After many modifications, the new
area, named the 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 205
kilometres (127 miles) of automated metro
lines to connect Paris, the innermost three
departments around Paris, airports and high-speed
rail (TGV) stations, at an estimated cost
of €35 billion. The system is scheduled
to be completed by 2030.On 5 April 2014, Anne
Hidalgo, a Socialist, was elected the first
female Mayor of Paris.
==== Terrorist attacks ====
On 7 January 2015, two French Muslim extremists
attacked the Paris headquarters of Charlie
Hebdo and killed thirteen people, in an attack
claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,
and on 9 January, a third terrorist, who claimed
he was part of ISIL, killed four hostages
during an attack at a Jewish grocery store
at Porte de Vincennes. On 11 January an estimated
1.5 million people marched in Paris in a show
of solidarity against terrorism and in support
of freedom of speech. On 13 November of the
same year, a series of coordinated bomb and
gunfire terrorist attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis,
claimed by ISIL, killed 130 people and injured
more than 350.On 3 February 2017, a two-backpack-carrying,
machete-wielding attacker shouting "Allahu
Akbar" attacked soldiers guarding the Louvre
museum after they stopped him because of his
bags; the assailant was shot, and no explosives
were found. On 18 March of the same year,
in a Vitry-sur-Seine bar, a man held patrons
hostage, then fled to later hold a gun to
the head of an Orly Airport French soldier,
shouting "I am here to die in the name of
Allah", and was shot dead by the soldier's
comrades. On 20 April, a man shot dead French
police officer on the Champs-Élysées, and
was later shot dead himself. On 19 June, a
man rammed his weapons-and-explosives-laden
vehicle into a police van on the Champs-Élysées,
but the car only burst into flames.
== Geography ==
Paris is located in northern central France,
in a north-bending arc of the river Seine
whose crest includes two islands, the Île
Saint-Louis and the larger Île de la Cité,
which form the oldest part of the city. The
river's mouth on the English Channel (La Manche)
is about 233 mi (375 km) downstream from the
city. The city is spread widely on both banks
of the river. Overall, the city is relatively
flat, and the lowest point is 35 m (115 ft)
above sea level. Paris has several prominent
hills, the highest of which is Montmartre
at 130 m (427 ft).Excluding the outlying parks
of Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes,
Paris covers an oval measuring about 87 km2
(34 sq mi) in area, enclosed by the 35 km
(22 mi) ring road, the Boulevard Périphérique.
The city's last major annexation of outlying
territories in 1860 not only gave it its modern
form but also created the 20 clockwise-spiralling
arrondissements (municipal boroughs). From
the 1860 area of 78 km2 (30 sq mi), the city
limits were expanded marginally to 86.9 km2
(33.6 sq mi) in the 1920s. In 1929, the Bois
de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes forest parks
were officially annexed to the city, bringing
its area to about 105 km2 (41 sq mi). The
metropolitan area of the city is 2,300 km2
(890 sq mi).Measured from the 'point zero'
in front of its Notre-Dame cathedral, Paris
by road is 450 kilometres (280 mi) southeast
of London, 287 kilometres (178 mi) south of
Calais, 305 kilometres (190 mi) southwest
of Brussels, 774 kilometres (481 mi) north
of Marseille, 385 kilometres (239 mi) northeast
of Nantes, and 135 kilometres (84 mi) southeast
of Rouen.
=== Climate ===
Paris has a typical Western European oceanic
climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfb)
which is affected by the North Atlantic Current.
The overall climate throughout the year is
mild and moderately wet. Summer days are usually
warm and pleasant with average temperatures
between 15 and 25 °C (59 and 77 °F), and
a fair amount of sunshine. Each year, however,
there are a few days when the temperature
rises above 32 °C (90 °F). Longer periods
of more intense heat sometimes occur, such
as the heat wave of 2003 when temperatures
exceeded 30 °C (86 °F) for weeks, reached
40 °C (104 °F) on some days and seldom cooled
down at night. Spring and autumn have, on
average, mild days and fresh nights but are
changing and unstable. Surprisingly warm or
cool weather occurs frequently in both seasons.
In winter, sunshine is scarce; days are cool,
nights cold but generally above freezing with
low temperatures around 3 °C (37 °F). Light
night frosts are however quite common, but
the temperature will dip below −5 °C (23
°F) for only a few days a year. Snow falls
every year, but rarely stays on the ground.
The city sometimes sees light snow or flurries
with or without accumulation.Paris has an
average annual precipitation of 641 mm (25.2
in), and experiences light rainfall distributed
evenly throughout the year. However the city
is known for intermittent abrupt heavy showers.
The highest recorded temperature is 40.4 °C
(104.7 °F) on 28 July 1947, and the lowest
is −23.9 °C (−11.0 °F) on 10 December
1879.
== Administration ==
=== 
City government ===
For almost all of its long history, except
for a few brief periods, Paris was governed
directly by representatives of the king, emperor,
or president of France. The city was not granted
municipal autonomy by the National Assembly
until 1974. The first modern elected mayor
of Paris was Jacques Chirac, elected 20 March
1977, becoming the city's first mayor since
1793. The current mayor is Anne Hidalgo, a
socialist, elected 5 April 2014.The mayor
of Paris is elected indirectly by Paris voters;
the voters of each arrondissement elect the
Conseil de Paris (Council of Paris), composed
of 163 members. Each arrondissement has a
number of members depending upon its population,
from 10 members for each of the least-populated
arrondissements (1st through 9th) to 36 members
for the most populated (the 15th). The elected
council members select the mayor. Sometimes
the candidate who receives the most votes
citywide is not selected if the other candidate
has won the support of the majority of council
members. Mayor Bertrand Delanoë (2001–2014)
was elected by only a minority of city voters,
but a majority of council members.
Once elected, the council plays a largely
passive role in the city government, primarily
because it meets only once a month. The current
council is divided between a coalition of
the left of 91 members, including the socialists,
communists, greens, and extreme left; and
71 members for the centre right, plus a few
members from smaller parties.Each of Paris'
20 arrondissements has its own town hall and
a directly elected council (conseil d'arrondissement),
which, in turn, elects an arrondissement mayor.
The council of each arrondissement is composed
of members of the Conseil de Paris and also
members who serve only on the council of the
arrondissement. The number of deputy mayors
in each arrondissement varies depending upon
its population. There are a total of 20 arrondissement
mayors and 120 deputy mayors.The budget of
the city for 2018 is 9.5 billion Euros, with
an expected deficit of 5.5 billion Euros.
7.9 billion Euros are designated for city
administration, and 1.7 billion Euros for
investment. The number of city employees increased
from 40,000 in 2001 to 55,000 in 2018. The
largest part of the investment budget is earmarked
for public housing (262 million Euros) and
for real estate (142 million Euros).
=== Métropole du Grand Paris ===
The Métropole du Grand Paris, or simply Grand
Paris, formally came into existence on 1 January
2016. It is an administrative structure for
co-operation between the City of Paris and
its nearest suburbs. It includes the City
of Paris, plus the communes of the three departments
of the inner suburbs (Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis
and Val-de-Marne), plus seven communes in
the outer suburbs, including Argenteuil in
Val d'Oise and Paray-Vieille-Poste in Essonne,
which were added to include the major airports
of Paris. The Metropole covers 814 square
kilometres (314 square miles) and has a population
of 6.945 million persons.The new structure
is administered by a Metropolitan Council
of 210 members, not directly elected, but
chosen by the councils of the member Communes.
By 2020 its basic competencies will include
urban planning, housing and protection of
the environment. The first president of the
metropolitan council, Patrick Ollier, a Republican
and the mayor of the town of Rueil-Malmaison,
was elected on 22 January 2016. Though the
Metropole has a population of nearly seven
million persons 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, which has its headquarters
in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. It is
composed of 209 members representing the different
communes within the region. On 15 December
2015, a list of candidates of the Union of
the Right, a coalition of centrist and right-wing
parties, led by Valérie Pécresse, narrowly
won the regional election, defeating a coalition
of Socialists and ecologists. The Socialists
had governed the region for seventeen years.
The regional council has 121 members from
the Union of the Right, 66 from the Union
of the Left and 22 from the extreme right
National Front.
=== National government ===
As the capital of France, Paris is the seat
of France's national government. For the executive,
the two chief officers each have their own
official residences, which also serve as their
offices. The President of the French Republic
resides at the Élysée Palace in the 8th
arrondissement, while the Prime Minister's
seat is at the Hôtel Matignon in the 7th
arrondissement. Government ministries are
located in various parts of the city; many
are located in the 7th arrondissement, near
the Matignon.The two houses of the French
Parliament are located on the Left Bank. The
upper house, the Senate, meets in the Palais
du Luxembourg in the 6th arrondissement, while
the more important lower house, the Assemblée
Nationale, meets in the Palais Bourbon in
the 7th arrondissement. The President of the
Senate, the second-highest public official
in France (the President of the Republic being
the sole superior), resides in the "Petit
Luxembourg", a smaller palace annexe to the
Palais du Luxembourg.
France's highest courts are located in Paris.
The Court of Cassation, the highest court
in the judicial order, which reviews criminal
and civil cases, is located in the Palais
de Justice on the Île de la Cité, while
the Conseil d'État, which provides legal
advice to the executive and acts as the highest
court in the administrative order, judging
litigation against public bodies, is located
in the Palais-Royal in the 1st arrondissement.
The Constitutional Council, an advisory body
with ultimate authority on the constitutionality
of laws and government decrees, also meets
in the Montpensier wing of the Palais Royal.Paris
and its region host the headquarters of several
international organisations including UNESCO,
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development, the International Chamber
of Commerce, the Paris Club, the European
Space Agency, the International Energy Agency,
the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie,
the European Union Institute for Security
Studies, the International Bureau of Weights
and Measures, the International Exhibition
Bureau, and the International Federation for
Human Rights.
Following the motto "Only Paris is worthy
of Rome; only Rome is worthy of Paris"; the
only sister city of Paris is Rome, although
Paris has partnership agreements with many
other cities around the world.
=== Police force ===
The security of Paris is mainly the responsibility
of the Prefecture of Police of Paris, a subdivision
of the Ministry of the Interior of France.
It supervises the units of the National Police
who patrol the city and the three neighbouring
departments. It is also responsible for providing
emergency services, including the Paris Fire
Brigade. Its headquarters is on Place Louis
Lépine on the Île de la Cité.There are
30,200 officers under the prefecture, and
a fleet of more than 6,000 vehicles, including
police cars, motorcycles, fire trucks, boats
and helicopters. In addition to traditional
police duties, the local police monitors the
number of discount sales held by large stores
(no more than two a year are allowed) and
verify that during summer holidays, at least
one bakery is open in every neighbourhood.
The national police has its own special unit
for riot control and crowd control and security
of public buildings, called the Compagnies
Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS), a unit
formed in 1944 right after the liberation
of France. Vans of CRS agents are frequently
seen in the centre of the city when there
are demonstrations and public events.
The police are supported by the National Gendarmerie,
a branch of the French Armed Forces, though
their police operations now are supervised
by the Ministry of the Interior. The traditional
kepis of the gendarmes were replaced in 2002
with caps, and the force modernised, though
they still wear kepis for ceremonial occasions.Crime
in Paris is similar to that in most large
cities. Violent crime is relatively rare in
the city centre. Political violence is uncommon,
though very large demonstrations may occur
in Paris and other French cities simultaneously.
These demonstrations, usually managed by a
strong police presence, can turn confrontational
and escalate into violence.
== Cityscape ==
=== 
Urbanism and architecture ===
Most French rulers since the Middle Ages made
a point of leaving their mark on a city that,
contrary to many other of the world's capitals,
has never been destroyed by catastrophe or
war. In modernising its infrastructure through
the centuries, Paris has preserved even its
earliest history in its street map. At its
origin, before the Middle Ages, the city was
composed around several islands and sandbanks
in a bend of the Seine; of those, two remain
today: the île Saint-Louis and the île de
la Cité. 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
and his Prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann.
Between 1853 and 1870 they rebuilt the city
centre, created the wide downtown boulevards
and squares where the boulevards intersected,
imposed standard facades along the boulevards,
and required that the facades be built of
the distinctive cream-grey "Paris stone".
They also built the major parks around the
city centre. The high residential population
of its city centre also makes it much different
from most other western major cities.Paris's
urbanism laws have been under strict control
since the early 17th century, particularly
where street-front alignment, building height
and building distribution is concerned. In
recent developments, a 1974–2010 building
height limitation of 37 metres (121 ft) was
raised to 50 m (160 ft) in central areas and
180 metres (590 ft) in some of Paris's peripheral
quarters, yet for some of the city's more
central quarters, even older building-height
laws still remain in effect. The 210 metres
(690 ft) Montparnasse tower was both Paris
and France's tallest building until 1973,
but this record has been held by the La Défense
quarter Tour First tower in Courbevoie since
its 2011 construction.
Parisian examples of European architecture
date back more than a millennium; including
the Romanesque church of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés
(1014–1163); the early Gothic Architecture
of the Basilica of Saint-Denis (1144), the
Notre Dame Cathedral (1163–1345), the Flamboyant
Gothic of Saint Chapelle (1239–1248), the
Baroque churches of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis
(1627–1641) and Les Invalides (1670–1708).
The 19th century produced the neoclassical
church of La Madeleine (1808–1842); the
Palais Garnier Opera House (1875); the neo-Byzantine
Basilica of Sacré-Cœur (1875–1919), and
the exuberant Belle Époque modernism of the
Eiffel Tower (1889). Striking examples of
20th-century architecture include the Centre
Georges Pompidou by Richard Rogers and Renzo
Piano (1977), and the Louvre Pyramid by I.
M. Pei (1989). Contemporary architecture includes
the Musée du quad Branly by Jean Nouvel (2006),
the contemporary art museum of the Louis Vuitton
Foundation by Frank Gehry (2014)., and the
new Tribunal de Justice by Renzo Piano (2018).
=== Housing ===
The most expensive residential streets in
Paris in 2018 by average price per square
meter were Avenue Montaigne (8th arrondissement),
at 22,372 Euros per square meter; Place Dauphine
(1st arrondissement) (20,373 Euros); and Rue
de Furstemberg (6th arrondissement) at 18,839
Euros per square meter.The total number of
residences in the city of Paris in 2011 was
1,356,074, up from a former high of 1,334,815
in 2006. Among these, 1,165,541 (85.9 percent)
were main residences, 91,835 (6.8 percent)
were secondary residences, and the remaining
7.3 percent were empty (down from 9.2 percent
in 2006).Sixty-two percent of its buildings
date from 1949 and before, 20 percent were
built between 1949 and 1974, and only 18 percent
of the buildings remaining were built after
that date.Two-thirds of the city's 1.3 million
residences are studio and two-room apartments.
Paris averages 1.9 people per residence, a
number that has remained constant since the
1980s, but it is much less than Île-de-France's
2.33 person-per-residence average. Only 33
percent of principal residence Parisians own
their habitation (against 47 percent for the
entire Île-de-France): the major part of
the city's population is a rent-paying one.Social
or public housing represented 19.9 percent
of the city's total residences in 2017. Its
distribution varies widely throughout the
city, from 2.6 percent of the housing in the
wealthy 7th arrondissement, to 24 percent
in the 20th arrondissement, 26 percent in
the 14th arrondissement, and 39.9 percent
in the 19th arrondissement, on the poorer
southwest and northern edges of the city.On
the night of February 15–16, 2018, during
a spell of cold weather, the City of Paris
conducted a citywide count of homeless persons,
carried out by two thousand volunteers. They
found 2,952 persons sleeping on the streets,
and another 672 in temporary shelters, for
a total of 3,600.
=== Paris and its suburbs ===
Aside from the 20th-century addition of the
Bois de Boulogne, Bois de Vincennes and Paris
heliport, Paris's administrative limits have
remained unchanged since 1860. The Seine département
had been governing Paris and its suburbs since
its creation in 1790, but the rising suburban
population had made it difficult to govern
as a unique entity. This problem was 'resolved'
when its parent "District de la région parisienne"
('district of the Paris region') was reorganised
into several new departments from 1968: Paris
became a department in itself, and the administration
of its suburbs was divided between the three
new departments surrounding it. The district
of the Paris region was renamed "Île-de-France"
in 1977, but this abbreviated "Paris region"
name is still commonly used today to describe
the Île-de-France, and as a vague reference
to the entire Paris agglomeration. Long-intended
measures to unite Paris with its suburbs began
on 1 January 2016, when the Métropole du
Grand Paris came into existence.Paris's disconnect
with its suburbs, its lack of suburban transportation,
in particular, became all too apparent with
the Paris agglomeration's growth. Paul Delouvrier
promised to resolve the Paris-suburbs mésentente
when he became head of the Paris region in
1961: two of his most ambitious projects for
the Region were the construction of five suburban
"villes nouvelles" ("new cities") and the
RER commuter train network. Many other suburban
residential districts (grands ensembles) were
built between the 1960s and 1970s to provide
a low-cost solution for a rapidly expanding
population: these districts were socially
mixed at first, but few residents actually
owned their homes (the growing economy made
these accessible to the middle classes only
from the 1970s). Their poor construction quality
and their haphazard insertion into existing
urban growth contributed to their desertion
by those able to move elsewhere and their
repopulation by those with more limited possibilities.These
areas, quartiers sensibles ("sensitive quarters"),
are in northern and eastern Paris, namely
around its Goutte d'Or and Belleville neighbourhoods.
To the north of the city, they are grouped
mainly in the Seine-Saint-Denis department,
and to a lesser extreme to the east in the
Val-d'Oise department. Other difficult areas
are located in the Seine valley, in Évry
et Corbeil-Essonnes (Essonne), in Mureaux,
Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines), and scattered
among social housing districts created by
Delouvrier's 1961 "ville nouvelle" political
initiative.The Paris agglomeration's urban
sociology is basically that of 19th-century
Paris: its fortuned classes are situated in
its west and southwest, and its middle-to-lower
classes are in its north and east. The remaining
areas are mostly middle-class citizenry dotted
with islands of fortuned populations located
there due to reasons of historical importance,
namely Saint-Maur-des-Fossés to the east
and Enghien-les-Bains to the north of Paris.
== Demographics ==
The official population of the city of Paris
was 2,206,488 as of January 1, 2018, according
to INSEE, the official French statistical
agency. This is a decline of 37,345 (- 1,66
%), from 2014. This drop was attributed partly
to a lower birth rate, and partly to the possible
loss of housing in the city due to short-term
rentals for tourism.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 2013 population of 10,601,122
made it the largest urban area in the European
Union. City-influenced commuter activity reaches
well beyond even this in a statistical aire
urbaine de Paris (a measure of metropolitan
area), that had a 2013 population of 12,405,426,
a number one-fifth the population of France,
the largest metropolitan area in the Eurozone.
Paris is the fifth largest municipality in
the European Union, following London, Berlin,
Madrid and Rome. Eurostat, the statistical
agency of the EU, places Paris (6.5 million
people) second 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 Paris Urban Area,
or "unité urbaine", is a statistical area
created by the French statistical agency INSEE
to measure the population of built-up areas
around the city. It is slightly smaller than
the Paris Region. According to INSEE, the
Paris Urban Area had a population of 10,550,350
at the January 2012 census, the most populous
in the European Union, and third most populous
in Europe, behind Istanbul and Moscow. The
Paris Metropolitan Area is the second most
populous in the European Union after London
with a population of 12,341,418 at the Jan.
2012 census.
The population of Paris today is lower than
its historical peak of 2.9 million in 1921.
The principal reasons were a significant decline
in household size, and a dramatic migration
of residents to the suburbs between 1962 and
1975. Factors in the migration included de-industrialisation,
high rent, the gentrification of many inner
quarters, the transformation of living space
into offices, and greater affluence among
working families. The city's population loss
came to an end in the 21st century; the population
estimate of July 2004 showed a population
increase for the first time since 1954, and
the population reached 2,234,000 by 2009,
before declining again slightly in 2017. However,
declined once again in 2018.
According to Eurostat, the EU statistical
agency, in 2012 the Commune of Paris was the
most densely populated city in the European
Union, with 21,616 people per square kilometre
within the city limits (the NUTS-3 statistical
area), ahead of Inner London West, which had
10,374 people per square kilometre. According
to the same census, three departments bordering
Paris, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and
Val-de-Marne, had population densities of
over 10,000 people per square kilometre, ranking
among the 10 most densely populated areas
of the EU.
=== Migration ===
According to the 2012 French census, 586,163
residents of the City of Paris, or 26.2 percent,
and 2,782,834 residents of the Paris Region
(Île-de-France), or 23.4 percent, were born
outside of Metropolitan France (the last figure
up from 22.4% at the 2007 census).26,700 of
these in the City of Paris and 210,159 in
the Paris Region were people born in Overseas
France (more than two-thirds of whom in the
French West Indies) and are therefore not
counted as immigrants since they were legally
French citizens at birth.A further 103,648
in the City of Paris and in 412,114 in the
Paris Region were born in foreign countries
with French citizenship at birth. This concerns
in particular the many Christians and Jews
from North Africa who moved to France and
Paris after the times of independence and
are not counted as immigrants due to their
being born French citizens.
The remaining group, people born in foreign
countries with no French citizenship at birth,
are those defined as immigrants under French
law. According to the 2012 census, 135,853
residents of the city of Paris were immigrants
from Europe, 112,369 were immigrants from
the Maghreb, 70,852 from sub-Saharan Africa
and Egypt, 5,059 from Turkey, 91,297 from
Asia (outside Turkey), 38,858 from the Americas,
and 1,365 from the South Pacific. Note that
the immigrants from the Americas and the South
Pacific in Paris are vastly outnumbered by
migrants from French overseas regions and
territories located in these regions of the
world.In the Paris Region, 590,504 residents
were immigrants from Europe, 627,078 were
immigrants from the Maghreb, 435,339 from
sub-Saharan Africa and Egypt, 69,338 from
Turkey, 322,330 from Asia (outside Turkey),
113,363 from the Americas, and 2,261 from
the South Pacific. These last two groups of
immigrants are again vastly outnumbered by
migrants from French overseas regions and
territories located in the Americas and the
South Pacific.In 2012, there were 8,810 British
citizens and 10,019 US citizens living in
the City of Paris (Ville de Paris), and 20,466
British citizens and 16,408 US citizens living
in the entire Paris Region (Île-de-France).
=== Religion ===
French census data does not contain information
about religious affiliation. According to
a 2011 survey by IFOP, a French public opinion
research organisation, 61 percent of residents
of the Paris Region (Île-de-France) identified
themselves as Roman Catholic, though just
15 percent said they were practising Catholics,
while 46 percent were non-practicing. 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 INSEE, the French government
statistical office, between 4 and 5 million
French residents were born or had at least
one parent born in a predominantly Muslim
country, particularly Algeria, Morocco, and
Tunisia. An IFOP survey in 2008 reported that,
of immigrants from these predominantly Muslim
countries, 25 percent went to the mosque regularly;
41 percent practised the religion, and 34
percent were believers but did not practice
the religion. In 2012 and 2013, it was estimated
that there were almost 500,000 Muslims in
the City of Paris, 1.5 million Muslims in
the Île-de-France region, and 4 to 5 million
Muslims in France.The Jewish population of
the Paris Region was estimated in 2014 to
be 282,000, the largest concentration of Jews
in the world outside of Israel and the United
States.
== Economy ==
The economy of the City of Paris is based
largely on services and commerce; of the 390,480
enterprises in the city, 80.6 percent are
engaged in commerce, transportation, and diverse
services, 6.5 percent in construction, and
just 3.8 percent in industry. The story is
similar in the Paris Region (Île-de-France):
76.7 percent of enterprises are engaged in
commerce and services, and 3.4 percent in
industry.At the 2012 census, 59.5% of jobs
in the Paris Region were in market services
(12.0% in wholesale and retail trade, 9.7%
in professional, scientific, and technical
services, 6.5% in information and communication,
6.5% in transportation and warehousing, 5.9%
in finance and insurance, 5.8% in administrative
and support services, 4.6% in accommodation
and food services, and 8.5% in various other
market services), 26.9% in non-market services
(10.4% in human health and social work activities,
9.6% in public administration and defence,
and 6.9% in education), 8.2% in manufacturing
and utilities (6.6% in manufacturing and 1.5%
in utilities), 5.2% in construction, and 0.2%
in agriculture.The Paris Region had 5.4 million
salaried employees in 2010, of whom 2.2 million
were concentrated in 39 pôles d'emplois or
business districts. The largest of these,
in terms of number of employees, is known
in French as the QCA, or quartier central
des affaires; it is in the western part of
the City of Paris, in the 2nd, 8th, 9th, 16th,
and 18th arrondissements. In 2010, it was
the workplace of 500,000 salaried employees,
about 30 percent of the salaried employees
in Paris and 10 percent of those in the Île-de-France.
The largest sectors of activity in the central
business district were finance and insurance
(16 percent of employees in the district)
and business services (15 percent). The district
also includes a large concentration of department
stores, shopping areas, hotels and restaurants,
as well a government offices and ministries.The
second-largest business district in terms
of employment is La Défense, just west of
the city, where many companies installed their
offices in the 1990s. In 2010, it was the
workplace of 144,600 employees, of whom 38
percent worked in finance and insurance, 16
percent in business support services. Two
other important districts, Neuilly-sur-Seine
and Levallois-Perret, are extensions of the
Paris business district and of La Défense.
Another district, including Boulogne-Billancourt,
Issy-les-Moulineaux and the southern part
of the 15th arrondissement, is a centre of
activity for the media and information technology.The
top ten French companies listed in the Fortune
Global 500 for 2018 all have their headquarters
in the Paris Region; six in the central business
district of the City of Paris; and four close
to the city in the Hauts-de-Seine Department,
three in La Défense and one in Boulogne-Billancourt.
Some companies, like Société Générale,
have offices in both Paris and La Défense.
The Paris Region is France's leading region
for economic activity, with a GDP of €681
billion (~US$850 billion) and €56,000 (~US$70,000)
per capita. In 2011, its GDP ranked second
among the regions of Europe and its per-capita
GDP was the 4th highest in Europe. While the
Paris region's population accounted for 18.8
percent of metropolitan France in 2011, the
Paris region's GDP accounted for 30 percent
of metropolitan France's GDP.The Paris Region
economy has gradually shifted from industry
to high-value-added service industries (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 Opéra Garnier, La
Défense and the Val de Seine. While the Paris
economy is dominated by 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, based on a survey made in September
2016, Paris ranked as the seventh most expensive
city in the world, and the second most expensive
in Europe, after Zurich.
=== Employment ===
According to 2012 INSEE figures, 68 percent
of employees in the City of Paris work in
commerce, transportation, and services; 24.4
percent in public administration, health and
social services; 4.4 percent in industry,
and 0.1 percent in agriculture.The majority
of Paris's salaried employees fill 370,000
businesses services jobs, concentrated in
the north-western 8th, 16th and 17th arrondissements.
Paris's financial service companies are concentrated
in the central-western 8th and 9th arrondissement
banking and insurance district. Paris's department
store district in the 1st, 6th, 8th and 9th
arrondissements employ ten percent of mostly
female Paris workers, with 100,000 of these
registered in the retail trade. Fourteen percent
of Parisians work in hotels and restaurants
and other services to individuals. Nineteen
percent of Paris employees work for the State
in either in administration or education.
The majority of Paris's healthcare and social
workers work at the hospitals and social housing
concentrated in the peripheral 13th, 14th,
18th, 19th and 20th arrondissements. Outside
Paris, the western Hauts-de-Seine department
La Défense district specialising in finance,
insurance and scientific research district,
employs 144,600, and the north-eastern Seine-Saint-Denis
audiovisual sector has 200 media firms and
10 major film studios.Paris's manufacturing
is mostly focused in its suburbs, and the
city itself has only around 75,000 manufacturing
workers, most of which are in the textile,
clothing, leather goods, and shoe trades.
Paris region manufacturing specialises in
transportation, mainly automobiles, aircraft
and trains, but this is in a sharp decline:
Paris proper manufacturing jobs dropped by
64 percent between 1990 and 2010, and the
Paris region lost 48 percent during the same
period. Most of this is due to companies relocating
outside the Paris region. The Paris region's
800 aerospace companies employed 100,000.
Four hundred automobile industry companies
employ another 100,000 workers: many of these
are centred in the Yvelines department around
the Renault and PSA-Citroen plants (this department
alone employs 33,000), but the industry as
a whole suffered a major loss with the 2014
closing of a major Aulnay-sous-Bois Citroen
assembly plant.The southern Essonne department
specialises in science and technology, and
the south-eastern Val-de-Marne, with its wholesale
Rungis food market, specialises in food processing
and beverages. The Paris region's manufacturing
decline is quickly being replaced by eco-industries:
these employ about 100,000 workers. In 2011,
while only 56,927 construction workers worked
in Paris itself, its metropolitan area employed
246,639, in an activity centred largely around
the Seine-Saint-Denis (41,378) and Hauts-de-Seine
(37,303) departments and the new business-park
centres appearing there.
=== Unemployment ===
In the first trimester of 2018, the unemployment
rate in the city of Paris was 7.1 percent.
The provisional unemployment rate in the whole
Paris Region was higher: 8.0 percent, and
considerably higher in some suburbs, notably
the Department of Seine-Saint-Denis to the
east (11.8 percent) and the Val-d'Oise to
the north (8.2 percent).
=== Incomes ===
The average net household income (after social,
pension and health insurance contributions)
in Paris was €36,085 for 2011. It ranged
from €22,095 in the 19th arrondissement
to €82,449 in the 7th arrondissement. The
median taxable income for 2011 was around
€25,000 in Paris and €22,200 for Île-de-France.
Generally speaking, incomes are higher in
the Western part of the city and in the western
suburbs than in the northern and eastern parts
of the urban area. Unemployment was estimated
at 8.2 percent in the city of Paris and 8.8
percent in the Île-de-France region in the
first trimester of 2015. It ranged from 7.6
percent in the wealthy Essonne department
to 13.1 percent in the Seine-Saint-Denis department,
where many recent immigrants live.While Paris
has some of the richest neighbourhoods in
France, it also has some of the poorest, mostly
on the eastern side of the city. In 2012,
14 percent of households in the city earned
less than €977 per month, the official poverty
line. Twenty-five percent of residents in
the 19th arrondissement lived below the poverty
line; 24 percent in the 18th, 22 percent in
the 20th and 18 percent in the 10th. In the
city's wealthiest neighbourhood, the 7th arrondissement,
7 percent lived below the poverty line; 8
percent in the 6th arrondissement; and 9 percent
in the 16th arrondissement.
== Tourism ==
Greater Paris, comprising Paris and its three
surrounding departments, received 23.6 million
visitors in 2017, measured by hotel arrivals.
These included 12 million foreign visitors
and 11.5 million French visitors. Of foreign
visitors, the greatest number came from the
United States (2 million), Great Britain (1.1
million), Germany (802.6 thousand) and China
(774.4 thousand).In 2016, measured by the
MasterCard Global Cities Destination Index,
Paris was the third-busiest airline destination
in the world, with 18.03 million visitors,
behind Bangkok (21.47 million) and London
(19.88 million). According to the Paris Convention
and Visitors Bureau, 393,008 workers in Greater
Paris, or 12.4% of the total workforce, are
engaged in tourism-related sectors such as
hotels, catering, transport, and leisure.
=== Monuments and attractions ===
The city's top tourist attraction was the
Notre Dame Cathedral, which welcomed an estimated
12,000,000 visitors in 2017. Second was the
Basilique du Sacré-Cœur on Montmartre, with
an estimated 11 million visitors. This was
followed by the Louvre Museum (8.02 million
visitors); the Eiffel Tower (6.2 million);
Centre Pompidou (3.3 million visitors); Musée
d'Orsay (3.2 million); The City of Science
and Industry (2.4 million visitors); The Chapel
of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal (2 million
visitors); The Museum of Natural History (1.7
million visitors); and the Arc de Triomphe
(1.3 million visitors).
The centre of Paris contains the most visited
monuments in the city, including the Notre
Dame Cathedral and the Louvre as well as the
Sainte-Chapelle; Les Invalides, where the
tomb of Napoleon is located, and the Eiffel
Tower are located on the Left Bank south-west
of the centre. The Panthéon and the Catacombs
of Paris are also located on the Left Bank
of the Seine. The banks of the Seine from
the Pont de Sully to the Pont d'Iéna have
been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site
since 1991.
Other landmarks are laid out east to west
along the historical axis of Paris, which
runs from the Louvre through the Tuileries
Garden, the Luxor Column in the Place de la
Concorde, and the Arc de Triomphe, to the
Grande Arche of La Défense.
Several other much-visited landmarks are located
in the suburbs of the city; the Basilica of
St Denis, in Seine-Saint-Denis, is the birthplace
of the Gothic style of architecture and the
royal necropolis of French kings and queens.
The Paris region hosts three other UNESCO
Heritage sites: the Palace of Versailles in
the west, the Palace of Fontainebleau in the
south, and the medieval fairs site of Provins
in the east. In the Paris region, Disneyland
Paris, in Marne-la-Vallée, 32 kilometres
(20 miles) east of the centre of Paris, received
9.66 million visitors in 2017.
=== Hotels ===
In 2017 Greater Paris had 2,020 hotels, including
85 five-star hotels, with a total of 119,000
rooms. Paris has long been famous for its
grand hotels. The Hotel Meurice, opened for
British travellers in 1817, was one of the
first luxury hotels in Paris. The arrival
of the railways and the Paris Exposition of
1855 brought the first flood of tourists and
the first modern grand hotels; the Hôtel
du Louvre (now an antiques marketplace) in
1855; the Grand Hotel (now the InterContinental
Paris Le Grand Hotel) in 1862; and the Hôtel
Continental in 1878. The Hôtel Ritz on Place
Vendôme opened in 1898, followed by the Hôtel
Crillon in an 18th-century building on the
Place de la Concorde in 1909; the Hotel Bristol
on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in 1925;
and the Hotel George V in 1928.In addition
to hotels, in 2017 Greater Paris had 84,000
homes registered with Airbnb, which received
2.3 million visitors. Under French law, renters
of these units must pay the Paris tourism
tax. The company paid the city government
7.3 million Euros in 2016.
== Culture ==
=== 
Painting and sculpture ===
For centuries, Paris has attracted artists
from around the world, who arrive in the city
to educate themselves and to seek inspiration
from its vast pool of artistic resources and
galleries. As a result, Paris has acquired
a reputation as the "City of Art". Italian
artists were a profound influence on the development
of art in Paris in the 16th and 17th centuries,
particularly in sculpture and reliefs. Painting
and sculpture became the pride of the French
monarchy and the French royal family commissioned
many Parisian artists to adorn their palaces
during the French Baroque and Classicism era.
Sculptors such as Girardon, Coysevox and 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 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: Édouard
Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Paul
Gauguin, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and others.
The French Revolution and political and social
change in France had a profound influence
on art in the capital. Paris was central to
the development of Romanticism in art, with
painters such as Gericault. Impressionism,
Art Nouveau, Symbolism, Fauvism, Cubism and
Art Deco movements all evolved in Paris. In
the late 19th century, many artists in the
French provinces and worldwide flocked to
Paris to exhibit their works in the numerous
salons and expositions and make a name for
themselves. Artists such as Pablo Picasso,
Henri Matisse, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne,
Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Henri Rousseau,
Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani and many others
became associated with Paris. Picasso, living
in Le Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre, painted
his famous La Famille de Saltimbanques and
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon between 1905 and
1907. Montmartre and Montparnasse became centres
for artistic production.
The most prestigious names of French and foreign
sculptors, who made their reputation in Paris
in the modern era, are Frédéric Auguste
Bartholdi (Statue of Liberty - Liberty Enlightening
the World), Auguste Rodin, Camille Claudel,
Antoine Bourdelle, Paul Landowski (statue
of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro)
and Aristide Maillol. The Golden Age of the
School of Paris ended between the two world
wars.
=== Photography ===
The inventor Nicéphore Niépce produced the
first permanent photograph on a polished pewter
plate in Paris in 1825. In 1839, after the
death of Niépce, Louis Daguerre patented
the Daguerrotype, which became the most common
form of photography until the 1860s. The work
of Étienne-Jules Marey in the 1880s contributed
considerably to the development of modern
photography. Photography came to occupy a
central role in Parisian Surrealist activity,
in the works of Man Ray and Maurice Tabard.
Numerous photographers achieved renown for
their photography of Paris, including Eugène
Atget, noted for his depictions of street
scenes, Robert Doisneau, noted for his playful
pictures of people and market scenes (among
which Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville has become
iconic of the romantic vision of Paris), Marcel
Bovis, noted for his night scenes, and others
such as Jacques-Henri Lartigue and 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, Gavarni, and Alphonse Mucha.
=== Museums ===
The Louvre was the most visited art museum
in the world in 2017, with 8.1 million visitors.
Its treasures include the Mona Lisa (La Joconde),
the Venus de Milo statue, Liberty Leading
the People, and many other notable works.
The second-most visited museum in the city,
with 3.3 million visitors, was the Centre
Georges Pompidou, also known as Beaubourg,
which houses the Musée National d'Art Moderne.
The third most visited Paris museum, in a
building constructed for the Universal Exhibition
of 1900 as the Orsay railway station, was
the Musée d'Orsay, which had 3.2 million
visitors in 2017. The Orsay displays French
art of the 19th century, including major collections
of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.
The Musée de l'Orangerie, near both the Louvre
and the Orsay, also exhibits Impressionists
and Post-Impressionists, including most of
Claude Monet's large Water Lilies murals.
The Musée national du Moyen Âge, or Cluny
Museum, presents Medieval art, including the
famous tapestry cycle of The Lady and the
Unicorn. The Guimet Museum, or Musée national
des arts asiatiques, has one of the largest
collections of Asian art in Europe. There
are also notable museums devoted to individual
artists, including the Picasso Museum the
Rodin Museum, and the Musée national Eugène
Delacroix.
Paris hosts one of the largest science museums
in Europe, the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie
at La Villette. It attracted 2.4 million visitors
in 2017. The National Museum of Natural History,
on the Left Bank, attracted 1.76 million visitors
in 2016. It is famous for its dinosaur artefacts,
mineral collections, and its Gallery of Evolution.
The military history of France, from the Middle
Ages to World War II, is vividly presented
by displays at the Musée de l'Armée at Les
Invalides, near the tomb of Napoleon. In addition
to the national museums, run by the French
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
House of Victor Hugo and 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. It
received 1.4 million visitors in 2017.
=== Theatre ===
The largest opera houses of Paris are the
19th-century Opéra Garnier (historical 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 middle of the 19th
century, there were three other active and
competing opera houses: the Opéra-Comique
(which still exists), Théâtre-Italien, and
Théâtre Lyrique (which in modern times changed
its profile and name to Théâtre de la Ville).
Philharmonie de Paris, the modern symphonic
concert hall of Paris, opened in January 2015.
Another musical landmark is the Théâtre
des Champs-Élysées, where the first performances
of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes took place in
1913.
Theatre traditionally has occupied a large
place in Parisian culture, and many of its
most popular actors today are also stars of
French television. The oldest and most famous
Paris theatre is the Comédie-Française,
founded in 1680. Run by the French government,
it performs mostly French classics at the
Salle Richelieu in the Palais-Royal at 2 rue
de Richelieu, next to the Louvre. of Other
famous theatres include the Odéon-Théâtre
de l'Europe, next to the Luxembourg Gardens,
also a state institution and theatrical landmark;
the Théâtre Mogador, and the Théâtre de
la Gaîté-Montparnasse.The music hall and
cabaret are famous Paris institutions. The
Moulin Rouge was opened in 1889. It was highly
visible because of its large red imitation
windmill on its roof, and became the birthplace
of the dance known as the French Cancan. It
helped make famous the singers Mistinguett
and Édith Piaf and the painter 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 Saloon,
featuring strip-tease, dance and magic, opened
in 1951. A half dozen music halls exist today
in Paris, attended mostly by visitors to the
city.
=== Literature ===
The first book printed in France, Epistolae
("Letters"), by Gasparinus de Bergamo (Gasparino
da Barzizza), was published in Paris in 1470
by the press established by Johann Heynlin.
Since then, Paris has been the centre of the
French publishing industry, the home of some
of the world's best-known writers and poets,
and the setting for many classic works of
French literature. Almost all the books published
in Paris in the Middle Ages were in Latin,
rather than French. Paris did not become the
acknowledged capital of French literature
until the 17th century, with authors such
as Boileau, Corneille, La Fontaine, Molière,
Racine, several coming from the provinces,
and the foundation of the Académie française.
In the 18th century, the literary life of
Paris revolved around the cafés and salons,
and was dominated by Voltaire, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, Pierre de Marivaux, and Beaumarchais.
During the 19th century, Paris was the home
and subject for some of France's greatest
writers, including Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane
Mallarmé, Mérimée, Alfred de Musset, Marcel
Proust, Émile Zola, Alexandre Dumas, Gustave
Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant and Honoré de
Balzac. Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre
Dame inspired the renovation of its setting,
the Notre-Dame de Paris. Another of Victor
Hugo's works, Les Misérables, written while
he was in exile outside France during the
Second Empire, described the social change
and political turmoil in Paris in the early
1830s. One of the most popular of all French
writers, Jules Verne, worked at the Theatre
Lyrique and the Paris stock exchange, while
he did research for his stories at the National
Library.
In the 20th century, the Paris literary community
was dominated by figures such as Colette,
André Gide, François Mauriac, André Malraux,
Albert Camus, and, after World War II, by
Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Between
the wars it was the home of many important
expatriate writers, including Ernest Hemingway,
Samuel Beckett, and, in the 1970s, Milan Kundera.
The winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature,
Patrick Modiano (who lives in Paris), based
most of his literary work on the depiction
of the city during World War II and the 1960s–1970s.Paris
is a city of books and bookstores. In the
1970s, 80 percent of French-language publishing
houses were found in Paris, almost all on
the Left Bank in the 5th, 6th and 7th arrondissements.
Since that time, because of high prices, some
publishers have moved out to the less expensive
areas. It is also a city of small bookstores.
There are about 150 bookstores in the 5th
arrondissement alone, plus another 250 book
stalls along the Seine. Small Paris bookstores
are protected against competition from discount
booksellers by French law; books, even e-books,
cannot be discounted more than five percent
below their publisher's cover price.
=== Music ===
In the late 12th century, a school of polyphony
was established at Notre-Dame. Among the Trouvères
of northern France, a group of Parisian aristocrats
became known for their poetry and songs. Troubadours,
from the south of France, were also popular.
During the reign of François I, in the 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-era, noted
composers included Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe
Rameau, and François Couperin. The Conservatoire
de Musique de Paris was founded in 1795. By
1870, Paris had become an important centre
for symphony, ballet and operatic music.
Romantic-era composers (in Paris) include
Hector Berlioz (La Symphonie fantastique),
Charles Gounod (Faust), Camille Saint-Saëns
(Samson et Delilah), Léo Delibes (Lakmé)
and Jules Massenet (Thaïs), among others.
Georges Bizet's Carmen premiered 3 March 1875.
Carmen has since become one of the most popular
and frequently-performed operas in the classical
canon. Among the Impressionist composers who
created new works for piano, orchestra, opera,
chamber music and other musical forms, stand
in particular, Claude Debussy (Suite bergamasque,
and its well-known third movement, Clair de
lune, La Mer, Pelléas et Mélisande), Erik
Satie (Gymnopédies, "Je te veux", Gnossiennes,
Parade) and Maurice Ravel (Miroirs, Boléro,
La valse, L'heure espagnole). Several foreign-born
composers, such as Frédéric Chopin (Poland),
Franz Liszt (Hungary), Jacques Offenbach (Germany),
Niccolò Paganini (Italy), and Igor Stravinsky
(Russia), established themselves or made significant
contributions both with their works and their
influence in Paris.
Bal-musette is a style of French music and
dance that first became popular in Paris in
the 1870s and 1880s; by 1880 Paris had some
150 dance halls in the working-class neighbourhoods
of the city. Patrons danced the bourrée to
the accompaniment of the cabrette (a bellows-blown
bagpipe locally called a "musette") and often
the vielle à roue (hurdy-gurdy) in the cafés
and bars of the city. Parisian and Italian
musicians who played the accordion adopted
the style and established themselves in Auvergnat
bars especially in the 19th arrondissement,
and the romantic sounds of the accordion has
since become one of the musical icons of the
city. Paris became a major centre for jazz
and still attracts jazz musicians from all
around the world to its clubs and cafés.Paris
is the spiritual home of gypsy jazz in particular,
and many of the Parisian jazzmen who developed
in the first half of the 20th century began
by playing Bal-musette in the city. Django
Reinhardt rose to fame in Paris, having moved
to the 18th arrondissement in a caravan as
a young boy, and performed with violinist
Stéphane Grappelli and their Quintette du
Hot Club de France in the 1930s and 1940s.Immediately
after the War the Saint-Germain-des-Pres quarter
and the nearby Saint-Michel quarter became
home to many small jazz clubs, mostly found
in cellars because of a lack of space; these
included the Caveau des Lorientais, the Club
Saint-Germain, the Rose Rouge, the Vieux-Colombier,
and the most famous, Le Tabou. They introduced
Parisians to the music of Claude Luter, Boris
Vian, Sydney Bechet, Mezz Mezzrow, and Henri
Salvador. Most of the clubs closed by the
early 1960s, as musical tastes shifted toward
rock and roll.Some of the finest manouche
musicians in the world are found here playing
the cafés of the city at night. Some of the
more notable jazz venues include the New Morning,
Le Sunset, La Chope des Puces and Bouquet
du Nord. Several yearly festivals take place
in Paris, including the Paris Jazz Festival(fr)
and the rock festival Rock en Seine. The Orchestre
de Paris was established in 1967.On 19 December
2015, Paris and other worldwide fans commemorated
the 100th anniversary of the birth of Edith
Piaf—a French cabaret singer, songwriter
and actress who became widely regarded as
France's national chanteuse, as well as being
one of France's greatest international stars.
Other singers—of similar style—include
Maurice Chevalier, Charles Aznavour, Yves
Montand, and Charles Trenet.
Paris has a big hip hop scene. This music
became popular during the 1980s. The presence
of a large African and Caribbean community
helped to its development, it gave a voice,
a political and social status for many minorities.
=== Cinema ===
The movie industry was born in Paris when
Auguste and Louis Lumière projected the first
motion picture for a paying audience at the
Grand Café on 28 December 1895. Many of Paris's
concert/dance halls were transformed into
cinemas when the media became popular beginning
in the 1930s. Later, most of the largest cinemas
were divided into multiple, smaller rooms.
Paris's largest cinema room today is in the
Grand Rex theatre with 2,700 seats.Big multiplex
cinemas have been built since the 1990s. UGC
Ciné Cité Les Halles with 27 screens, MK2
Bibliothèque with 20 screens and UGC Ciné
Cité Bercy with 18 screens are among the
largest.Parisians tend to share the same movie-going
trends as many of the world's global cities,
with cinemas primarily dominated by Hollywood-generated
film entertainment. French cinema comes a
close second, with major directors (réalisateurs)
such as Claude Lelouch, Jean-Luc Godard, and
Luc Besson, and the more slapstick/popular
genre with director Claude Zidi as an example.
European and Asian films are also widely shown
and appreciated. On 2 February 2000, Philippe
Binant realised the first digital cinema projection
in Europe, with the DLP CINEMA technology
developed by Texas Instruments, in Paris.
=== Restaurants and cuisine ===
Since the late 18th century, Paris has been
famous for its restaurants and haute cuisine,
food meticulously prepared and artfully presented.
A luxury restaurant, La Taverne Anglaise,
opened in 1786 in the arcades of the Palais-Royal
by Antoine Beauvilliers; it featured an elegant
dining room, an extensive menu, linen tablecloths,
a large wine list and well-trained waiters;
it became a model for future Paris restaurants.
The restaurant Le Grand Véfour in the Palais-Royal
dates from the same period. The famous Paris
restaurants of the 19th century, including
the Café de Paris, the Rocher de Cancale,
the Café Anglais, Maison Dorée and the Café
Riche, were mostly located near the theatres
on the Boulevard des Italiens; they were immortalised
in the novels of Balzac and Émile Zola. Several
of the best-known restaurants in Paris today
appeared during the Belle Epoque, including
Maxim's on Rue Royale, Ledoyen in the gardens
of the Champs-Élysées, and the Tour d'Argent
on the Quai de la Tournelle.Today, due to
Paris's cosmopolitan population, every French
regional cuisine and almost every national
cuisine in the world can be found there; the
city has more than 9,000 restaurants. The
Michelin Guide has been a standard guide to
French restaurants since 1900, awarding its
highest award, three stars, to the best restaurants
in France. In 2018, of the 27 Michelin three-star
restaurants in France, ten are located in
Paris. These include both restaurants which
serve classical French cuisine, such as L'Ambroisie
in the Place des Vosges, and those which serve
non-traditional menus, such as L'Astrance,
which combines French and Asian cuisines.
Several of France's most famous chefs, including
Pierre Gagnaire, Alain Ducasse, Yannick Alléno
and Alain Passard, have three-star restaurants
in Paris.
In addition to the classical restaurants,
Paris has several other kinds of traditional
eating places. The café arrived in Paris
in the 17th century, when the beverage was
first brought from Turkey, and by the 18th
century Parisian cafés were centres of the
city's political and cultural life. The Café
Procope on the Left Bank dates from this period.
In the 20th century, the cafés of the Left
Bank, especially Café de la Rotonde and Le
Dôme Café in Montparnasse and Café de Flore
and Les Deux Magots on Boulevard Saint Germain,
all still in business, were important meeting
places for painters, writers and philosophers.
A bistro is a type of eating place loosely
defined as a neighbourhood restaurant with
a modest decor and prices and a regular clientele
and a congenial atmosphere. Its name is said
to have come in 1814 from the Russian soldiers
who occupied the city; "bistro" means "quickly"
in Russian, and they wanted their meals served
rapidly so they could get back their encampment.
Real bistros are increasingly rare in Paris,
due to rising costs, competition from cheaper
ethnic restaurants, and different eating habits
of Parisian diners. A brasserie originally
was a tavern located next to a brewery, which
served beer and food at any hour. Beginning
with the Paris Exposition of 1867; it became
a popular kind of restaurant which featured
beer and other beverages served by young women
in the national costume associated with the
beverage, particular German costumes for beer.
Now brasseries, like cafés, serve food and
drinks throughout the day.
=== Fashion ===
Paris has been an international capital of
high fashion since the 19th century, particularly
in the domain of haute couture, clothing hand-made
to order for private clients. It is home of
some of the largest fashion houses in the
world, including Dior and Chanel, and of many
well-known fashion designers, including Karl
Lagerfeld, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Christophe
Josse, and Christian Lacroix. Paris Fashion
Week, held in January and July in the Carrousel
du Louvre and other city locations, is among
the top four events of the international fashion
calendar, along with the fashion weeks in
Milan, London and New York. Paris is also
the home of the world's largest cosmetics
company, L'Oréal, and three of the five top
global makers of luxury fashion accessories:
Louis Vuitton, Hermés, and Cartier. Most
of the major fashion designers have their
showrooms along the Avenue Montaigne, between
the Champs-Élysées and the Seine.
=== Holidays and festivals ===
Bastille Day, a celebration of the storming
of the Bastille in 1789, the biggest festival
in the city, is a military parade taking place
every year on 14 July on the Champs-Élysées,
from the Arc de Triomphe to Place de la Concorde.
It includes a flypast over the Champs Élysées
by the Patrouille de France, a parade of military
units and equipment, and a display of fireworks
in the evening, the most spectacular being
the one at the Eiffel Tower.Some other yearly
festivals are Paris-Plages, a festive event
that lasts from mid-July to mid-August when
the Right Bank of the Seine is converted into
a temporary beach with sand, deck chairs and
palm trees; 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 Carnaval de Paris, one of the oldest festivals
in Paris, dates back to the Middle Ages.
== Education ==
Paris is the département with the highest
proportion of highly educated people. In 2009,
around 40 percent of Parisians held a licence-level
diploma or higher, the highest proportion
in France, while 13 percent have no diploma,
the third-lowest percentage in France. Education
in Paris and the Île-de-France region employs
approximately 330,000 people, 170,000 of whom
are teachers and professors teaching approximately
2.9 million children and students in around
9,000 primary, secondary, and higher education
schools and institutions.The University of
Paris, founded in the 12th century, is often
called the Sorbonne after one of its original
medieval colleges. It was broken up into thirteen
autonomous universities in 1970, following
the student demonstrations in 1968. Most of
the campuses today are in the 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 the public
university structure. The prestigious public
universities are usually considered grands
établissements. Most of the grandes écoles
were relocated to the suburbs of Paris in
the 1960s and 1970s, in new campuses much
larger than the old campuses within the crowded
city of Paris, though the École Normale Supérieure
has remained on rue d'Ulm in the 5th arrondissement.
There are a high number of engineering schools,
led by the Paris Institute of Technology which
comprises several colleges such as École
Polytechnique, École des Mines, AgroParisTech,
Télécom Paris, Arts et Métiers, and École
des Ponts et Chaussées. There are also many
business schools, including HEC, INSEAD, ESSEC,
and ESCP Europe. The administrative school
such as ENA has been relocated to Strasbourg,
the political science school Sciences-Po is
still located in Paris's 7th arrondissement
and the most prestigious university of economics
and finance, Paris-Dauphine, is located in
Paris's 16th. The Parisian school of journalism
CELSA department of the Paris-Sorbonne University
is located in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Paris is
also home to several of France's most famous
high-schools such as Lycée Louis-le-Grand,
Lycée Henri-IV, Lycée Janson de Sailly and
Lycée Condorcet. The National Institute of
Sport and Physical Education, located in the
12th arrondissement, is both a physical education
institute and high-level training centre for
elite athletes.
=== Libraries ===
The Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)
operates public libraries in Paris, among
them the François Mitterrand Library, Richelieu
Library, Louvois, Opéra Library, and Arsenal
Library. There are three public libraries
in the 4th arrondissement. The Forney Library,
in the Marais district, is dedicated to the
decorative arts; the Arsenal Library occupies
a former military building, and has a large
collection on French literature; and the Bibliothèque
historique de la ville de Paris, also in Le
Marais, contains the Paris historical research
service. The Sainte-Geneviève Library is
in 5th arrondissement; designed by Henri Labrouste
and built in the mid-1800s, it contains a
rare book and manuscript division. Bibliothèque
Mazarine, in the 6th arrondissement, is the
oldest public library in France. The Médiathèque
Musicale Mahler in the 8th arrondissement
opened in 1986 and contains collections related
to music. The François Mitterrand Library
(nicknamed Très Grande Bibliothèque) in
the 13th arrondissement was completed in 1994
to a design of Dominique Perrault and contains
four glass towers.There are several academic
libraries and archives in Paris. The Sorbonne
Library in the 5th arrondissement is the largest
university library in Paris. In addition to
the 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 clubs Stade Français and
Racing 92, the last of which is based just
outside the city proper. The 80,000-seat Stade
de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup,
is located just north of Paris in the commune
of Saint-Denis. It is used for football, rugby
union and track and field athletics. It hosts
the French national football team for friendlies
and major tournaments qualifiers, annually
hosts the French national rugby team's home
matches of the Six Nations Championship, and
hosts several important matches of the Stade
Français rugby team. In addition to Paris
Saint-Germain FC, the city has a number of
other professional and amateur football clubs:
Paris FC, Red Star, RCF Paris and Stade Français
Paris.
Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics
and will host the 2024 Summer Olympics and
Paralympic Games.
The city also hosted the finals of the 1938
FIFA World Cup (at the Stade Olympique de
Colombes), as well as the 1998 FIFA World
Cup and the 2007 Rugby World Cup Final (both
at the Stade de France). Two UEFA Champions
League Finals in the current century have
also been played in the Stade de France: the
2000 and 2006 editions. Paris has most recently
been the host for UEFA Euro 2016, both at
the Parc des Princes in the city proper and
also at Stade de France, with the latter hosting
the opening match and final.
The final stage of the most famous bicycle
racing in the world, Tour de France, always
finishes in Paris. Since 1975, the race has
finished on the Champs-Elysées.Tennis is
another popular sport in Paris and throughout
France; the French Open, held every year on
the red clay of the Roland Garros National
Tennis Centre, is one of the four Grand Slam
events of the world professional tennis tour.
The 17,000-seat Bercy Arena (officially named
AccorHotels Arena and formerly known as the
Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy) is the venue
for the annual Paris Masters ATP Tour tennis
tournament and has been a frequent site of
national and international tournaments in
basketball, boxing, cycling, handball, ice
hockey, show jumping and other sports. The
Bercy Arena also hosted the 2017 IIHF World
Ice Hockey Championship, together with Cologne,
Germany. The final stages of the FIBA EuroBasket
1999 were also played at the Palais Omnisports
de Paris-Bercy.
The basketball team Levallois Metropolitans
plays some of its games at the 4,000 capacity
Stade Pierre de Coubertin. Another top-level
professional team, Nanterre 92, plays in Nanterre.
== Infrastructure ==
=== 
Transport ===
Paris is a major rail, highway, and air transport
hub. The Île-de-France Mobilités, formerly
Syndicat des transports d'Île-de-France (STIF),
and before that theSyndicat des transports
parisiens (STP), oversees the transit network
in the region. The syndicate coordinates public
transport and contracts it out to the RATP
(operating 347 bus lines, the Métro, eight
tramway lines, and sections of the RER), the
SNCF (operating suburban rails, one tramway
line and the other sections of the RER) and
the Optile consortium of private operators
managing 1,176 bus lines.
==== Railways ====
A central hub of the national rail network,
Paris's six major railway stations (Gare du
Nord, Gare de l'Est, Gare de Lyon, Gare d'Austerlitz,
Gare Montparnasse, Gare Saint-Lazare) and
a minor one (Gare de Bercy) are connected
to three networks: the TGV serving four high-speed
rail lines, the normal speed Corail trains,
and the suburban rails (Transilien).
==== Métro, RER and tramway ====
Since the inauguration of its first line in
1900, Paris's Métro (subway) network has
grown to become the city's most widely used
local transport system; today it carries about
5.23 million passengers daily through 16 lines,
303 stations (385 stops) and 220 km (136.7
mi) of rails. Superimposed on this is a 'regional
express network', the RER, whose five lines
(A, B, C, D, and E), 257 stops and 587 km
(365 mi) of rails connect Paris to more distant
parts of the urban area.Over €26.5 billion
will be invested over the next 15 years to
extend the Métro network into the suburbs,
with notably the Grand Paris Express project.
In addition, the Paris region is served by
a light rail network of nine lines, the tramway:
Line T1 runs from Asnières-Gennevilliers
to Noisy-le-Sec, Line T2 runs from Pont de
Bezons to Porte de Versailles, Line T3a runs
from Pont du Garigliano to Porte de Vincennes,
Line T3b runs from Porte de Vincennes to Porte
de la Chapelle, Line T5 runs from Saint-Denis
to Garges-Sarcelles, Line T6 runs from Châtillon
to Viroflay, Line T7 runs from Villejuif to
Athis-Mons, Line T8 runs from Saint-Denis
to Épinay-sur-Seine and Villetaneuse, all
of which are operated by the RATP Group, and
line T4 runs from Bondy RER to Aulnay-sous-Bois,
which is operated by the state rail carrier
SNCF. Five new light rail lines are currently
in various stages of development.
==== Air ====
Paris is a major international air transport
hub with the 5th busiest airport system in
the world. The city is served by three commercial
international airports: Paris-Charles de Gaulle,
Paris-Orly and Beauvais-Tillé. Together these
three airports recorded traffic of 96.5 million
passengers in 2014. There is also one general
aviation airport, Paris-Le Bourget, historically
the oldest Parisian airport and closest to
the city centre, which is now used only for
private business flights and air shows.
Orly Airport, located in the southern suburbs
of Paris, replaced Le Bourget as the principal
airport of Paris from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Charles de Gaulle Airport, located on the
edge of the northern suburbs of Paris, opened
to commercial traffic in 1974 and became the
busiest Parisian airport in 1993. For the
year 2017 it was the 5th busiest airport in
the world by international traffic and it
is the hub for the nation's flag carrier Air
France. Beauvais-Tillé Airport, located 69
kilometres (43 miles) north of Paris's city
centre, is used by charter airlines and low-cost
carriers such as Ryanair.
Domestically, air travel between Paris and
some of France's largest cities such as Lyon,
Marseille, or Strasbourg has been in a large
measure replaced by high-speed rail due to
the opening of several high-speed TGV rail
lines from the 1980s. For example, after the
LGV Méditerranée opened in 2001, air traffic
between Paris and Marseille declined from
2,976,793 passengers in 2000 to 1,502,196
passengers in 2014. After the LGV Est opened
in 2007, air traffic between Paris and Strasbourg
declined from 1,006,327 passengers in 2006
to 157,207 passengers in 2014.Internationally,
air traffic has increased markedly in recent
years between Paris and the Gulf airports,
the emerging nations of Africa, Russia, Turkey,
Portugal, Italy, and mainland China, whereas
noticeable decline has been recorded between
Paris and the British Isles, Egypt, Tunisia,
and Japan.
==== Motorways ====
The city is also the most important hub of
France's motorway network, and is surrounded
by three orbital freeways: the Périphérique,
which follows the approximate path of 19th-century
fortifications around Paris, the A86 motorway
in the inner suburbs, and finally the Francilienne
motorway in the outer suburbs. Paris has an
extensive road network with over 2,000 km
(1,243 mi) of highways and motorways.
==== Waterways ====
The Paris region is the most active water
transport area in France, with most of the
cargo handled by Ports of Paris in facilities
located around Paris. The rivers Loire, Rhine,
Rhone, 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 440 km (270 mi) of cycle paths and
routes in Paris. These include piste cyclable
(bike lanes separated from other traffic by
physical barriers such as a kerb) and bande
cyclable (a bicycle lane denoted by a painted
path on the road). Some 29 km (18 mi) of specially
marked bus lanes are free to be used by cyclists,
with a protective barrier protecting against
encroachments from vehicles. Cyclists have
also been given the right to ride in both
directions on certain one-way streets. Paris
offers a bike sharing system called Vélib'
with more than 20,000 public bicycles distributed
at 1,800 parking stations, which can be rented
for short and medium distances including one
way trips.
=== Electricity ===
Electricity is provided to Paris through a
peripheral grid fed by multiple sources. As
of 2012, around 50% of electricity generated
in the Île-de-France comes from cogeneration
energy plants located near the outer limits
of the region; other energy sources include
the Nogent nuclear power plant (35%), trash
incineration (9% – with cogeneration plants,
these provide the city in heat as well), methane
gas (5%), hydraulics (1%), solar power (0.1%)
and a negligible amount of wind power (0.034
GWh). A quarter of Paris's district heating
is to come from a plant in Saint-Ouen, burning
a 50/50-mix of coal and 140,000 tonnes of
wood pellets from USA per year.
=== Water and sanitation ===
Paris in its early history had only the rivers
Seine and Bièvre for water. From 1809, the
Canal de l'Ourcq provided Paris with water
from less-polluted rivers to the north-east
of the capital. From 1857, the civil engineer
Eugène Belgrand, under Napoleon III, oversaw
the construction of a series of new aqueducts
that brought water from locations all around
the city to several reservoirs built atop
the Capital's highest points of elevation.
From then on, the new reservoir system became
Paris's principal source of drinking water,
and the remains of the old system, pumped
into lower levels of the same reservoirs,
were from then on used for the cleaning of
Paris's streets. This system is still a major
part of Paris's modern water-supply network.
Today Paris has more than 2,400 km (1,491
mi) of underground passageways dedicated to
the evacuation of Paris's liquid wastes.
In 1982, Mayor Chirac introduced the motorcycle-mounted
Motocrotte to remove dog faeces from Paris
streets. The project was abandoned in 2002
for a new and better enforced local law, under
the terms of which dog owners can be fined
up to €500 for not removing their dog faeces.
The air pollution in Paris, from the point
of view of particulate matter (PM10), is the
highest in France with 38 µg/m³.
=== Parks and gardens ===
Paris today has more than 421 municipal parks
and gardens, covering more than 3,000 hectares
and containing more than 250,000 trees. Two
of Paris's oldest and most famous gardens
are the Tuileries Garden, created in 1564
for the Tuileries Palace, and redone by André
Le Nôtre between 1664 and 1672, and the Luxembourg
Garden, for the Luxembourg Palace, built for
Marie de' Medici in 1612, which today houses
the French Senate. The Jardin des Plantes
was the first botanical garden in Paris, created
in 1626 by Louis XIII's doctor Guy de La Brosse
for the cultivation of medicinal plants.Between
1853 and 1870, the Emperor Napoleon III and
the city's first director of parks and gardens,
Jean-Charles Alphand, created the Bois de
Boulogne, the Bois de Vincennes, Parc Montsouris
and the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, located
at the four points of the compass around the
city, as well as many smaller parks, squares
and gardens in the Paris's quarters. Since
1977, the city has created 166 new parks,
most notably the Parc de la Villette (1987),
Parc André Citroën (1992), and Parc de Bercy
(1997). One of the newest parks, the Promenade
des Berges de la Seine (2013), built on a
former highway on the Left Bank of the Seine
between the Pont de l'Alma and the Musée
d'Orsay, has floating gardens and gives a
view of the city's landmarks.
=== Cemeteries ===
In Paris's Roman era, its main cemetery was
located to the outskirts of the Left Bank
settlement, but this changed with the rise
of Catholicism, 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, les Innocents, were filled to overflowing,
creating quite unsanitary conditions for the
capital. When inner-city burials were condemned
from 1786, the contents of all Paris's parish
cemeteries were transferred to a renovated
section of Paris's stone mines outside the
"Porte d'Enfer" city gate, today place Denfert-Rochereau
in the 14th arrondissement. The process of
moving bones from Cimetière des Innocents
to the catacombs took place between 1786 and
1814; part of the network of tunnels and remains
can be visited today on the official tour
of the catacombs.
After a tentative creation of several smaller
suburban cemeteries, the Prefect Nicholas
Frochot under Napoleon Bonaparte provided
a more definitive solution in the creation
of three massive Parisian cemeteries outside
the city limits. Open from 1804, these were
the cemeteries of Père Lachaise, Montmartre,
Montparnasse, and later Passy; these cemeteries
became inner-city once again when Paris annexed
all neighbouring communes to the inside of
its much larger ring of suburban fortifications
in 1860. New suburban cemeteries were created
in the early 20th century: The largest of
these are the Cimetière parisien de Saint-Ouen,
the Cimetière parisien de Pantin (also known
as Cimetière parisien de Pantin-Bobigny),
the Cimetière parisien d'Ivry, and the Cimetière
parisien de Bagneux. Some of the most famous
people in the world are buried in Parisian
cemeteries.
== Healthcare ==
Health care and emergency medical service
in the city of Paris and its suburbs are provided
by the Assistance publique – Hôpitaux de
Paris (AP-HP), a public hospital system that
employs more than 90,000 people (including
practitioners, support personnel, and administrators)
in 44 hospitals. It is the largest hospital
system in Europe. It provides health care,
teaching, research, prevention, education
and emergency medical service in 52 branches
of medicine. The hospitals receive more than
5.8 million annual patient visits.One of the
most notable hospitals is the Hôtel-Dieu,
founded in 651, the oldest hospital in the
city. Other hospitals include Pitié-Salpêtrière
Hospital (one of the largest in Europe), Hôpital
Cochin, Hôpital Bichat, Hôpital Européen
Georges-Pompidou, Bicêtre Hospital, Beaujon
Hospital, the Curie Institute, Lariboisière
Hospital, Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital,
Hôpital Saint-Louis, Hôpital de la Charité
and the American Hospital of Paris.
== Media ==
Paris and its close suburbs is home to numerous
newspapers, magazines and publications including
Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libération, Le Nouvel
Observateur, Le Canard enchaîné, La Croix,
Pariscope, Le Parisien (in Saint-Ouen), Les
Échos, Paris Match (Neuilly-sur-Seine), Réseaux
& Télécoms, Reuters France, and L'Officiel
des Spectacles. France's two most prestigious
newspapers, Le Monde and Le Figaro, are the
centrepieces of the Parisian publishing industry.
Agence France-Presse is France's oldest, and
one of the world's oldest, continually operating
news agencies. AFP, as it is colloquially
abbreviated, maintains its headquarters in
Paris, as it has since 1835. France 24 is
a television news channel owned and operated
by the French government, and is based in
Paris. Another news agency is France Diplomatie,
owned and operated by the Ministry of Foreign
and European Affairs, and pertains solely
to diplomatic news and occurrences.The most-viewed
network in France, TF1, is in nearby Boulogne-Billancourt.
France 2, France 3, Canal+, France 5, M6 (Neuilly-sur-Seine),
Arte, D8, W9, 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. Radio France Internationale,
another public broadcaster is also based in
the city. Paris also holds the headquarters
of the La Poste, France's national postal
carrier.
== International relations ==
=== Twin towns and partner cities ===
Since 9 April 1956, Paris is exclusively and
reciprocally twinned only with:
Rome, Italy, 1956Seule Paris est digne de
Rome; seule Rome est digne de Paris. (in French)
Solo Parigi è degna di Roma; solo Roma è
degna di Parigi. (in Italian)
"Only Paris is worthy of Rome; only Rome is
worthy of Paris."
=== Other relationships ===
Paris has agreements of friendship and co-operation
with:
== See also ==
C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group
International Exposition of Modern Industrial
and Decorative Arts held in Paris in 1925
Megacity
Outline of France
Paris syndrome
== 
References ==
=== 
Notes ===
=== Footnotes ===
=== Bibliography ===
== 
Further reading ==
Vincent Cronin (1989). Paris on the Eve, 1900–1914.
New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 0-312-04876-9.
Vincent Cronin (1994). Paris: City of Light,
1919–1939. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN
0-00-215191-X.
Jean Favier (23 April 1997). Paris (in French).
Fayard. ISBN 2-213-59874-6.
Jacques Hillairet (22 April 2005). Connaissance
du Vieux Paris (in French). Rivages. ISBN
2-86930-648-2.
Colin Jones (2004). Paris: The Biography of
a City. New York: Penguin Viking. ISBN 0-670-03393-6.
Bernard Marchand (1993). Paris, histoire d'une
ville : XIXe-XXe siècle (in French). Paris:
Le Seuil. ISBN 978-2-02-012864-3.
Rosemary Wakeman (2009). The Heroic City:
Paris, 1945–1958. University of Chicago
Press. ISBN 978-0-226-87023-6.
== External links ==
Official website (in French)
Expatriates Magazine – Printed Publication
circulated inside Paris
Paris at Curlie
History of Paris
