Paris
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Paris is the center of many major newspapers and periodicals, as well as all the major French radio and television stations. Elegant stores and hotels, lavish nightclubs, theaters, and gourmet restaurants help make tourism the biggest industry in Paris. Other leading industries manufacture luxury articles, high-fashion clothing, perfume, and jewelry. Heavy industry, notably automobile manufacture, is located in the suburbs. About one quarter of the French labor force is concentrated in the Paris area.
Transportation Facilities
Situated in the center of the Paris basin (see Île-de-France), and only 90 mi (145 km) from the English Channel, the city handles a great volume of shipping. Orly and Charles de Gaulle airports (the latter opened in 1974) and many major railroad stations make Paris one of the great transportation centers of western Europe. The Paris metro (subway), built in 1900, was modernized and extended during the 1970s. There are now 16 principal metro lines and a high-speed express subway system servicing the suburbs. The system's hub, Chatelet Les-Halles, is perhaps the largest, busiest underground station in the world. Paris is also the hub of the national rail system, with high-speed trains connecting it to most major European cities.
Points of Interest
Paris is divided into roughly equal sections by the Seine. On the right (northern) bank are the Bois de Boulogne, Arc de Triomphe, the old Bibliothèque nationale, Élysée Palace, Grand Palais, Georges Pompidou National Center for Art and Culture (see Beaubourg), Place de la Concorde, Opéra, Comédie Française, Louvre, Palais de Chaillot, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Grande Arche de la Défense, Champs Élysées, and other great streets, sites, and boulevards. In the eastern part of the right bank is the Museum of the Art and History of Judaism, the Place de la Bastille and the Bastille Opera; to the north is Montmartre, the highest area in Paris, topped by the Church of Sacré-Cɶur. Much of the right bank, which has many of the most fashionable streets and shops, has a stately air. At night many monuments and boulevards are floodlit. In the city's northeastern outskirts is the Parc de la Villette, home of the large Cité de la Musique, opened in the early 1990s, and the planned site of a number of performance and exhibition spaces.
The left bank, with the Sorbonne, the French Academy, the Panthéon (see under pantheon), the Luxembourg Palace and Gardens, the Jardin des Plantes (site of the National Natural History Museum), the Chamber of Deputies, the Quai d'Orsay, and the Hotel des Invalides, is the governmental and to a large extent the intellectual section. The Latin Quarter, for nearly a thousand years the preserve of university students and faculty; the Faubourg Saint-Germain section, at once aristocratic and a haven for students and artists (the celebrated Café des Deux Magots and Café de Flore are there); and Montparnasse are the most celebrated left-bank districts. The Eiffel Tower stands by the Seine on the Champ-de-Mars. In SE Paris, also on the left bank, is Paris Rive Gauche, a former industrial area redeveloped with a variety of newer buildings and renovations, many by prominent architects; the new Bibliothèque nationale (opened 1998) is there.
The historical nucleus of Paris is the Île de la Cité, a small boat-shaped island largely occupied by the huge Palais de Justice and the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. It is connected with the smaller Île Saint-Louis, occupied by elegant houses of the 17th and 18th cent. Characteristic of Paris are the tree-lined quays along the Seine (famed, on the left bank, for their open-air bookstalls), the historic bridges that span the Seine, and the vast tree-lined boulevards that replaced the city walls. Skyscrapers, apartment complexes, and highways have been added to the Paris scene in recent years.
Government and People
Paris is divided into 20 arrondissements (districts or boroughs), each of which has a local council and a mayor, but most of the power is held by the mayor of the City of Paris who is chosen by the city's council. Paris and its suburbs together make up the eight departments of the Île-de-France administrative region, which is governed by an elected assembly, chairman (or president), and supervisor and overseen by a prefect appointed by the state.
Immigrants to France now constitute nearly 20% of Paris's population. The majority of these are Algerian, Moroccan, and Tunisian. Large groups of Indochinese have also immigrated to Paris. About 75% of all Parisians live in the suburbs due to high costs and a high population density in the city. New towns have been built, consolidating suburban areas, and a great deal of manufacturing and other industry takes place in the suburbs.
History
Early HistoryJulius Caesar conquered Paris in 52 B.C. It was then a fishing village, called Lutetia Parisiorum (the Parisii were a Gallic tribe), on the Île de la Cité. Under the Romans the town spread to the left bank and acquired considerable importance under the later emperors. The vast catacombs under Montparnasse and the baths (now in the Cluny Mus.) remain from the Roman period. Legend says that St. Denis, first bishop of Paris, was martyred on Montmartre (hence the name) and that in the 5th cent. St. Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris, preserved the city from destruction by the Huns. On several occasions in its early history Paris was threatened by barbarian and Norman invasions, which at times drove the inhabitants back to the Île de la Cité.
Clovis I and several other Merovingian kings made Paris their capital; under Charlemagne it became a center of learning. In 987, Hugh Capet, count of Paris, became king of France. The Capetians firmly established Paris as the French capital. The city grew as the power of the French kings increased. In the 11th cent. the city spread to the right bank. During the next two centuries—the reign of Philip Augustus (1180-1223) is especially notable for the growth of Paris—streets were paved and the city walls enlarged; the first Louvre (a fortress) and several churches, including Notre-Dame, were constructed or begun; and the schools on the left bank were organized into the Univ. of Paris. One of them, the Sorbonne, became a fountainhead of theological learning with Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas among its scholars. The university community constituted an autonomous borough; another was formed on the right bank by merchants ruled by their own provost. In 1358, under the leadership of the merchant provost Étienne Marcel, Paris first assumed the role of an independent commune and rebelled against the dauphin (later Charles V). During the period of the Hundred Years War the city suffered civil strife (see Armagnacs and Burgundians), occupation by the English (1419-36), famine, and the Black Death.
During the RenaissanceThe Renaissance reached Paris in the 16th cent. during the reign of Francis I (1515-47). At this time the Louvre was transformed from a fortress to a Renaissance palace. In the Wars of Religion (1562-98), Parisian Catholics, who were in the great majority, took part in the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day (1572), forced Henry III to leave the city on the Day of Barricades (1588), and accepted Henry IV only after his conversion (1593) to Catholicism. Cardinal Richelieu, Louis XIII's minister, established the French Academy and built the Palais Royal and the Luxembourg Palace. During the Fronde, Paris once again defied the royal authority. Louis XIV, distrustful of the Parisians, transferred (1682) his court to Versailles. Parisian industries profited from the lavishness of Versailles; the specialization in luxury goods dates from that time. J. H. Mansart under Louis XIV and François Mansart, J. G. Soufflot, and J. A. Gabriel under Louis XV created some of the most majestic prospects of modern Paris.
The Seventeenth and Eighteenth CenturiesDuring the late 17th and the 18th cent. Paris acquired further glory as the scene of many of France's greatest cultural achievements: the plays of Molière, Racine, and Corneille; the music of Lully, Rameau, and Gluck; the paintings of Watteau, Fragonard, and Boucher; and the salons where many of the philosophes of the Enlightenment gathered. At the same time, growing industries had resulted in the creation of new classes—the bourgeoisie and proletariat—concentrated in such suburbs (faubourgs) as Saint-Antoine and Saint-Denis; in the opening events of the French Revolution, city mobs stormed the Bastille (July, 1789) and hauled the royal family from Versailles to Paris (Oct., 1789). Throughout the turbulent period of the Revolution the city played a central role.
Napoleon to the CommuneNapoleon (emperor, 1804-15) began a large construction program (including the building of the Arc de Triomphe, the Vendôme Column, and the arcaded Rue de Rivoli) and enriched the city's museums with artworks removed from conquered cities. In the course of his downfall Paris was occupied twice by enemy armies (1814, 1815). In the first half of the 19th cent. Paris grew rapidly. In 1801 it had 547,000 people; in 1817, 714,000; in 1841, 935,000; and in 1861, 1,696,000. The revolutions of July, 1830, and Feb., 1848, both essentially Parisian events, had repercussions throughout Europe. Culturally, the city was at various times the home or host of most of the great European figures of the age. Balzac, Hugo, Chopin, Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, Delacroix, Ingres, and Daumier were a few of the outstanding personalities. The grand outline of modern Paris was the work of Baron Georges Haussmann, who was appointed prefect by Napoleon III. The great avenues, boulevards, and parks are his work. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), Paris was besieged for four months by the Germans and then surrendered. After the Germans withdrew, Parisian workers rebelled against the French government and established the Commune of Paris, which was bloodily suppressed.
Under the Third RepublicWith the establishment of the Third French Republic and relative stability, Paris became the great industrial and transportation center it is today. Two epochal events in modern cultural history that took place in Paris were the first exhibition of impressionist painting (1874) and the premiere of Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps (1913). In World War I the Germans failed to reach Paris. After 1919 the outermost city fortifications were replaced by housing developments, including the Cité Universitaire, which houses thousands of students. During the 1920s, Paris was home to many disillusioned artists and writers from the United States and elsewhere. German troops occupied Paris during World War II from June 14, 1940, to Aug. 25, 1944. The city was not seriously damaged by the war.
Contemporary ParisParis was the headquarters of NATO from 1950 to 1967; it is the headquarters of UNESCO and the European Space Agency. A program of cleaning the city's major buildings and monuments was completed in the 1960s. The city was the scene in May, 1968, of serious disorders, beginning with a student strike, that nearly toppled the Fifth Republic. In 1971, Les Halles, Paris's famous central market, called by Zola the "belly" of Paris, was dismantled. Construction began immediately on Chatelet Les-Halles, Paris's new metro hub, which was completed in 1977. The Forum des Halles, a partially underground, multistory commercial and shopping center, opened in 1979. Other developments include the Georges Pompidou National Center for Art and Culture, built in 1977, which includes the National Museum of Modern Art. The Louvre underwent extensive renovation, and EuroDisney, a multibillion dollar theme and amusement park, opened in the Parisian suburbs in 1992. A number of major projects in the city were initiated by President François Mitterrand (1981-95); they include the new Bibliothèque Nationale, the glass pyramid at the Louvre, Grande Arche de la Défense, Arab Institute, Bastille Opera, and Cité de la Musique.
Bibliography
See J. Flanner, Paris Journal (2 vol., 1965-71; repr. 1977) and Paris Was Yesterday, 1925-39 (1988); M. Kessel, The History of Paris, from Caesar to Saint Louis (tr. 1969); L. Bernard, The Emerging City: Paris in the Age of Louis XIV (1970); M. Guerrini, Napoleon and Paris: Thirty Years of History (tr. and abr. 1971); D. Thomson, Renaissance Paris (1984); D. Roche, The People of Paris (1987); J. Seigel, Bohemian Paris (1987); B. Geremek, The Margins of Society in Late Medieval Europe (1987); J.-M. Pérouse de Montclos, Paris: City of Art (2003); S. Roux, Paris in the Middle Ages (2009).
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See C. D. Hazen et al., Three Peace Congresses of the Nineteenth Century (1917).
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The Treaty of 1763
The Treaty of Paris of Feb. 10, 1763, was signed by Great Britain, France, and Spain. Together with the treaty of Hubertusburg, it terminated the Seven Years War. France lost its possessions on the North American continent by ceding Canada and all its territories east of the Mississippi to Great Britain, and by ceding W Louisiana to its ally, Spain, in compensation for Florida, which Spain yielded to Great Britain. France retained the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon and recovered Guadeloupe and Martinique in the West Indies from Great Britain, in exchange for which it ceded Grenada and the Grenadines to the English.
In East India the French were permitted to return to their posts, but they were forbidden to maintain troops or build forts in Bengal; India thus virtually passed to Great Britain. In Africa France yielded Senegal to Great Britain. Cuba and the Philippines were restored to Spain. In Europe the French and Spanish returned Minorca to Great Britain, and France withdrew its troops from Germany. From this treaty dated the colonial and maritime supremacy of Great Britain.
The Treaty of 1783
By the Treaty of Paris of Sept. 3, 1783, Great Britain formally acknowledged the independence of the United States, and the warring European powers, Britain against France and Spain, with the Dutch as armed neutrals, effected a large-scale peace settlement. The preliminary Anglo-American articles (which went unchanged) were signed on Nov. 30, 1782, after months of tortuous negotiations, in which the chief American plenipotentiaries, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay, acquitted themselves so well that their achievement has been labeled "the greatest triumph in the history of American diplomacy."
France and Spain signed separate preliminary articles with Great Britain on Jan. 20, 1783, and the Dutch and British signed theirs on Sept. 2, 1783. These preliminary agreements (except the Anglo-Dutch one, which was not ratified by both powers until June, 1784) were signed as definitive treaties on Sept. 3, 1783.
The Anglo-American settlement fixed the boundaries of the United States. In the Northeast the line extended from the source of the St. Croix River due north to the highlands separating the rivers flowing to the Atlantic from those draining into the St. Lawrence River, thence with the highlands to lat. 45°N, and then along the 45th parallel to the St. Lawrence. From there the northern boundary followed a line midway through contiguous rivers and lakes (especially the Great Lakes) to the northwest corner of the Lake of the Woods, thence "due west" to the sources of the Mississippi (which were not then known).
The Mississippi, south to lat. 31°N, was made the western boundary. On the south the line followed the 31st parallel E to the Chattahoochee River and its junction with the Flint River, then took a straight line to the mouth of the St. Marys River, and from there to the Atlantic. The navigation of the Mississippi was to be open to the citizens of both nations.
Another section of the treaty granted Americans fishing rights off Newfoundland and the privilege of curing fish in the uninhabited parts of Labrador, Nova Scotia, and the Magdalen Islands, but not in Newfoundland. A third part provided that creditors of either side would be unimpeded in the collection of lawful debts. In a fourth section the American government promised to recommend to the several states that they repeal their confiscation laws, provide for restitution of confiscated property to British subjects, and take no further proceedings against the Loyalists.
In the treaty with France, Britain relinquished the restrictions that had been imposed on the French naval port of Dunkirk, but aside from minor adjustments in the West Indies and Africa, the territorial dispositions made in the Treaty of Paris of 1763 were generally continued. Spain, however, in its treaty with Britain, reacquired the Floridas in America and the island of Minorca in the Mediterranean, while the British retained Gibraltar.
The Treaty of 1814
The Treaty of Paris of May 30, 1814, was concluded between France on the one hand and Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia on the other after the first abdication of Napoleon I. France was confined to its boundaries of 1792. No indemnity was exacted, and England returned all the French colonies save Tobago, St. Lucia, and Mauritius. Britain also kept Malta. A general conference was to be called for the territorial settlement in Europe (see Vienna, Congress of). The leniency of the treaty to defeated France was chiefly due to the diplomatic skill of Talleyrand, who had engineered the restoration of Louis XVIII on the French throne.
The Treaty of 1815
After Napoleon's return, his defeat at Waterloo, and his second abdication, a new peace treaty was signed at Paris on Nov. 20, 1815. This treaty was much sterner than the one of the previous year. France was reduced to the boundary of 1790, was required to pay 700 million francs in reparations, and was made to pay for the maintenance of an Allied army of occupation in NE France, which was to remain for a maximum of five years. All the provisions of the treaty of 1814 not expressly revoked were to remain binding, as was the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna. On the same day Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia renewed the Quadruple Alliance.
Other Treaties
For the Treaty of Paris of 1856, see Paris, Congress of. For the Treaty of Paris of 1898, see Spanish-American War. After World War I several treaties were signed in 1919 and 1920 in or near Paris (see Versailles, Treaty of; Saint-Germain, Treaty of; Neuilly, Treaty of; Trianon, Treaty of; Sèvres, Treaty of). Again, after World War II, peace treaties were signed in Paris in 1947 between the Allies and Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland. Each treaty is a separate document.
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Quick-setting gypsum plaster consisting of a fine white powder, calcium sulfate hemihydrate, which hardens when moistened and allowed to dry. It is made by heating gypsum to 250–360°F (120–180°C). Used since ancient times, plaster of paris is so called because of its preparation from the abundant gypsum found in Paris. It is used to make molds and casts for ceramics and sculptures, to precast and hold ornamental plasterwork on ceilings and cornices, and for orthopedic bandages (casts). In medieval and Renaissance times, gesso (plaster of paris mixed with glue) was applied to wood panels, plaster, stone, or canvas to provide the ground for tempera and oil painting.
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Second oldest European university (after the University of Bologna), founded circa 1170 in France. It grew out of the cathedral schools of Notre-Dame and, with papal support, soon became a great centre of Christian orthodox teaching. In the medieval period its professors included St. Bonaventure, Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas. Its most celebrated early college was the Sorbonne, founded circa 1257. The university declined somewhat under the impact of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. With the French Revolution and Napoleon's reforms, teaching became more independent of religion and politics. By the mid-20th century the university had again become a preeminent scientific and intellectual centre. In May 1968 a Sorbonne student protest grew into a serious national crisis. This led to decentralizing reforms, the old university being replaced in 1970 by a system in Paris and its suburbs called the Universities of Paris I–XIII.
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(1763) Treaty concluding the Seven Years' War (including the French and Indian War). It was signed by Britain and Hanover on one side and France and Spain on the other. France renounced to Britain the mainland of North America east of the Mississippi, its conquests in India since 1749, and four West Indian islands. Britain restored to France four other West Indian islands and the West African colony of Gorée (Senegal). In return for recovering Havana and Manila, Spain ceded Florida to Britain and received Louisiana from the French.
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Second oldest European university (after the University of Bologna), founded circa 1170 in France. It grew out of the cathedral schools of Notre-Dame and, with papal support, soon became a great centre of Christian orthodox teaching. In the medieval period its professors included St. Bonaventure, Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas. Its most celebrated early college was the Sorbonne, founded circa 1257. The university declined somewhat under the impact of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. With the French Revolution and Napoleon's reforms, teaching became more independent of religion and politics. By the mid-20th century the university had again become a preeminent scientific and intellectual centre. In May 1968 a Sorbonne student protest grew into a serious national crisis. This led to decentralizing reforms, the old university being replaced in 1970 by a system in Paris and its suburbs called the Universities of Paris I–XIII.
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(1763) Treaty concluding the Seven Years' War (including the French and Indian War). It was signed by Britain and Hanover on one side and France and Spain on the other. France renounced to Britain the mainland of North America east of the Mississippi, its conquests in India since 1749, and four West Indian islands. Britain restored to France four other West Indian islands and the West African colony of Gorée (Senegal). In return for recovering Havana and Manila, Spain ceded Florida to Britain and received Louisiana from the French.
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(1928) International agreement not to use war as an instrument of national policy. It was conceived by Aristide Briand, who hoped to engage the U.S. in a system of protective alliances to guard against aggression from a resurgent Germany. The U.S. secretary of state, Frank Kellogg, proposed a general multilateral treaty, and the French agreed. Most states signed the treaty, but its lack of enforceability and exceptions to its pacifist pledges rendered it useless. See also Pact of Locarno.
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(1919–20) Meeting that inaugurated the international settlement after World War I. It opened on Jan. 12, 1919, with representatives from more than 30 countries. The principal delegates were France's Georges Clemenceau, Britain's David Lloyd George, the U.S.'s Woodrow Wilson, and Italy's Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, who with their foreign ministers formed a Supreme Council. Commissions were appointed to study specific financial and territorial questions, including reparations. The major products of the conference were the League of Nations; the Treaty of Versailles, presented to Germany; the Treaty of Saint-Germain, presented to Austria; and the Treaty of Neuilly, presented to Bulgaria. The inauguration of the League of Nations on Jan. 16, 1920, brought the conference to a close. Treaties were subsequently concluded with Hungary (Treaty of Trianon, 1920) and Turkey (Treaties of Sèvres, 1920, and Lausanne, 1923).
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(March 18–May 28, 1871) Insurrection of Paris against the French government. After France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and the collapse of the Second Empire, the republican Parisians feared that the conservative majority in the National Assembly would restore the monarchy. On March 18 the National Guard in Paris resisted orders to disarm, and after municipal elections were won by the revolutionaries, they formed the Commune government. Factions included the so-called Jacobins, who wanted the Paris Commune to control the revolution (as its namesake had in the French Revolution); the Proudhonists, socialist followers of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon who supported a federation of communes; and the Blanquistes, socialist followers of Auguste Blanqui who demanded violent action. Government forces quickly suppressed communes elsewhere in France, then entered Paris on May 21. In a week of fierce fighting, they crushed the Communards, who had set up barricades in the streets and burned public buildings, including the Tuileries Palace. About 20,000 insurrectionists and 750 government troops were killed. In the aftermath, the government took harsh repressive action; 38,000 suspects were arrested and more than 7,000 were deported.
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City (pop., 2005 est.: 2,153,600; metro. area, 9,854,000), river port, capital of France. It is now located on both banks of the Seine River. The original settlement from which Paris evolved, Lutetia, was in existence by the late 3rd century BC on an island in the Seine. Lutetia was captured and fortified by the Romans in 52 BC. During the 1st century AD the city spread to the left bank of the Seine. By the early 4th century it was known as Paris. It withstood several Viking sieges (885–87) and became the capital of France in 987, when Hugh Capet, the count of Paris, became king. The city was improved during the reign of Philip II, who formally recognized the University of Paris circa 1200. In the 14th–15th centuries its development was hindered by the Black Death and the Hundred Years' War. In the 17th–18th centuries it was improved and beautified. Leading events of the French Revolution took place in Paris (1789–99). Napoleon III commissioned Georges-Eugène Haussmann to modernize the city's infrastructure and add several new bridges over the Seine. The city was the site of the Paris Peace Conference, which ended World War I. During World War II Paris was occupied by German troops. It is now the financial, commercial, transportation, artistic, and intellectual centre of France. The city's many attractions include the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame de Paris, the Louvre, the Panthéon, Pompidou Centre, and the Paris Opéra, as well as boulevards, public parks, and gardens.
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Notre-Dame de Paris.
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Paris (in English; in French) is the capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region (also known as the "Paris Region"; Région parisienne). The city of Paris within its administrative limits (largely unchanged since 1860) has an estimated population of 2,167,994 (January 2006). The Paris unité urbaine (or urban area) extends well beyond the administrative city limits and has an estimated population of 9.93 million (in 2005). The Paris aire urbaine (or metropolitan area) has a population of nearly 12 million, and is one of the most populated metropolitan areas in Europe.
An important settlement for more than two millennia, Paris is today one of the world's leading business and cultural centres, and its influence in politics, education, entertainment, media, fashion, science and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities. According to 2005 estimates by the PricewaterhouseCoopers accounting firm, the Paris urban area is Europe's biggest city economy, and is fifth in the world's list of cities by GDP.
The Paris Region, with €500.8 billion (US$628.9 billion), produced more than a quarter of the gross domestic product (GDP) of France in 2006. The Paris Region hosts 37 of the Fortune Global 500 companies in several business districts, notably La Défense, the largest purpose-built business district in Europe. Paris also hosts many international organizations such as UNESCO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the informal Paris Club.
Paris is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, with over 30 million foreign visitors per year. There are numerous iconic landmarks among its many attractions, along with world-famous institutions and popular parks.
Etymology
The name Paris in English and in French, derives from that of its inhabitants, the Gaulish tribe known as the Parisii. The city was called Lutetia (/lutetja/) (more fully, Lutetia Parisiorum, "Lutetia of the Parisii"), during the first- to sixth-century Roman occupation, but during the reign of Julian the Apostate (361–363) the city was renamed Paris.Other authors consider that the name of the Parisii tribe comes from the Celtic Gallic word parisio meaning "the working people" or "the craftsmen." Since the early 20th century, Paris has been known as Paname ([panam]) in French slang (i.e. "I'm from Paname"), a slang name that has been regaining favor with young people in recent years.
Paris has many nicknames, but its most famous is "La Ville-Lumiere" (literally, "The Light City"; although most often translated as "The City of Lights" or as "The City of Light"), a name it owes both to its fame as a centre of education and ideas and its early adoption of street lighting.
Paris' inhabitants are known in English as "Parisians" ([pʰəˈɹɪzɪənz] or [pʰəˈɹiːʒn̩z]) and in French as Parisiens (). Parisians are often pejoratively called Parigots by those living outside the Paris region, but the term may be considered endearing by Parisians themselves.
- See Paris#Translations for the name of Paris in various languages other than English and French.
History
Beginnings
The earliest archaeological signs of permanent habitation in the Paris area date from around 4200 BC. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, known as boatsmen and traders, inhabited the area near the river Seine from around 250 BC. The Romans conquered the Paris basin in 52 BC, with a permanent settlement by the end of the same century on the Left Bank Sainte Geneviève Hill and the Île de la Cité island. The Gallo-Roman town was originally called Lutetia, but later Gallicised to Lutèce. It expanded greatly over the following centuries, becoming a prosperous city with a forum, palaces, baths, temples, theatres and an amphitheatre. The collapse of the Roman empire and the third-century Germanic invasions sent the city into a period of decline. By 400 AD Lutèce, by then largely abandoned by its inhabitants, was little more than a garrison town entrenched into the hastily fortified central island. The city reclaimed its original appellation of "Paris" towards the end of the Roman occupation.Middle ages
Paris lost its position as seat of the French realm during occupation of the English-allied Burgundians during the Hundred Years' War, but regained its title when Charles VII reclaimed the city in 1437. Although Paris was capital once again, the Crown preferred to remain in its Loire Valley castles. During the French Wars of Religion, Paris was a stronghold of the Catholic party, culminating in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (1572). King Henry IV re-established the royal court in Paris in 1594 after he converted to Roman Catholicism (with this historic sentence: Paris is well worth a Mass). During the Fronde, Parisians rose in rebellion and the royal family fled the city (1648). King Louis XIV then moved the royal court permanently to Versailles in 1682. A century later, Paris was the centre stage for the French Revolution, with the Storming of the Bastille in 1789 and the overthrow of the monarchy in 1792.Nineteenth century
The Industrial Revolution, the French Second Empire, and the Belle Époque brought Paris the greatest development in its history. From the 1840s, rail transport allowed an unprecedented flow of migrants into Paris attracted by employment in the new industries in the suburbs. The city underwent a massive renovation under Napoleon III and his préfet Haussmann, who levelled entire districts of narrow, winding medieval streets to create the network of wide avenues and neo-classical façades of modern Paris. This programme of "Haussmannization" was designed to make the city both more beautiful and more sanitary for its inhabitants, although it did have the added benefit that in case of future revolts or revolutions, cavalry charges and rifle fire could be used to deal with the insurrection while the rebel tactic of barricading so often used during the Revolution would become obsolete.Cholera epidemics in 1832 and 1849 affected the population of Paris—the 1832 epidemic alone claimed 20,000 of the then population of 650,000. Paris also suffered greatly from the siege which ended the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871): in the chaos caused by the fall of Napoleon III's government, the Commune of Paris (1871) sent many of Paris' administrative centres (and city archives) up in flames while 20,000 Parisians were killed by fighting between Commune and Government forces in what became known as the semaine sanglante (Bloody Week).
Paris recovered rapidly from these events to host the famous Universal Expositions of the late nineteenth century. The Eiffel Tower was built for the French Revolution centennial 1889 Universal Exposition, as a "temporary" display of architectural engineering prowess but remained the world's tallest building until 1930, and is the city's best-known landmark, while the 1900 Universal Exposition saw the opening of the first Paris Métro line. Paris' World's Fairs also consolidated its position in the tourist industry and as an attractive setting for international technology and trade shows.
Twentieth century
During World War I, Paris was at the forefront of the war effort, having been spared a German invasion by the French and British victory at the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. In 1918-1919, it was the scene of Allied victory parades and peace negotiations. In the inter-war period Paris was famed for its cultural and artistic communities and its nightlife. The city became a gathering place of artists from around the world, from exiled Russian composer Stravinsky and Spanish painters Picasso and Dalí to American writer Hemingway.
In June 1940, five weeks after the start of the Battle of France, Paris fell to German occupation forces who remained there until the city was liberated in August 1944, two months after the Normandy invasion. Central Paris endured World War II practically unscathed, as there were no strategic targets for Allied bombers (train stations in central Paris are terminal stations; major factories were located in the suburbs), and also because of its cultural significance. German General von Choltitz did not destroy all Parisian monuments before any German retreat, as ordered by Adolf Hitler, who had visited the city in 1940.
In the post-war era, Paris experienced its largest development since the end of the Belle Époque in 1914. The suburbs began to expand considerably, with the construction of large social estates known as cités and the beginning of the business district La Défense. A comprehensive express subway network, the RER, was built to complement the Métro and serve the distant suburbs, while a network of freeways was developed in the suburbs, centred on the Périphérique expressway circling around the city.
Since the 1970s, many inner suburbs of Paris (especially the north and eastern ones) have experienced deindustrialization, and the once-thriving cités have gradually become ghettos for immigrants and oases of unemployment. At the same time, the city of Paris (within its Périphérique ring) and the western and southern suburbs have successfully shifted their economic base from traditional manufacturing to high value-added services and high-tech manufacturing, generating great wealth for their residents whose per capita income is among the highest in Europe. The resulting widening social gap between these two areas has led to periodic unrest since the mid-1980s, such as the 2005 riots which largely concentrated in the northeastern suburbs.
Twenty-first century
In order to address social tensions in the inner suburbs and revitalise the metropolitan economy of Paris, several plans are currently under way. The office of Secretary of State for the Development of the Capital Region was created in March 2008 within the French government. Its office holder, Christian Blanc, is in charge of overseeing President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans for the creation of an integrated Grand Paris ("Greater Paris") metropolitan authority (see Administration section below), as well as the extension of the subway network to cope with the renewed growth of population in Paris and its suburbs, and various economic development projects to boost the metropolitan economy such as the creation of a world-class technology and scientific cluster and university campus on the Saclay plateau in the southern suburbs.In parallel, President Sarkozy also launched in 2008 an international urban and architectural competition for the future development of metropolitan Paris. Ten teams gathering architects, urban planners, geographers, landscape architects will offer their vision for building a Paris metropolis of the 21st century in the post-Kyoto era and make a prospective diagnosis for Paris and its suburbs that will define future developments in Greater Paris for the next 40 years. The goal is not only to build an environmentally sustainable metropolis but also to integrate the inner suburbs with the central City of Paris through large scale urban planning operations and iconic architectural projects.
Meanwhile, in an effort to boost the image of metropolitan Paris in the global competition, several supertall skyscrapers (and higher) have been approved since 2006 in the business district of La Défense, to the west of the city proper, and are scheduled to be completed by the early 2010s. The City of Paris authorities also made public they are planning to authorise the construction of skyscrapers within the city proper by relaxing the cap on building height for the first time since the construction of the Tour Montparnasse in the early 1970s.
Geography
Paris is located in the north-bending arc of the river Seine and includes two islands, the Île Saint-Louis and the larger Île de la Cité, which form the oldest part of the city. Overall, the city is relatively flat, and the lowest elevation is above sea level. Paris has several prominent hills, of which the highest is Montmartre at .
Paris, excluding the outlying parks of Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes, covers an oval measuring in area. The city's last major annexation of outlying territories in 1860 not only gave it its modern form, but created the twenty clockwise-spiralling arrondissements (municipal boroughs). From the 1860 area of , the city limits were expanded marginally to in the 1920s. In 1929 the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes forest parks were officially annexed to the city, bringing its area to the present .
Climate
Paris has an oceanic climate and is affected by the North Atlantic Current, so the city rarely sees extremely high or low temperatures (such as heat wave of 2003 and the cold wave of 2006).Paris has warm summers with average high temperatures of and lows of . Winters are chilly, but rarely below freezing point with temperatures around - . Spring and fall have mild days and cool evenings. Rainfall could occur at any time of the year, and although not a very rainy city, Paris is known for its sudden showers. The yearly annual precipation is with light rainfall fairly distributed throughout the year. Snowfall is a rare occurrence, but the city could see light snow or flurries without accumulation in some winters. The highest record temperature ever in Paris was on 28 July 1948, and the lowest was a on 10 December 1879.
Cityscape
Architecture
"Modern" Paris is the result of a vast mid-19th century urban remodelling. For centuries the city had been a labyrinth of narrow streets and half-timber houses, but beginning in 1852, the Baron Haussmann's vast urbanisation levelled entire quarters to make way for wide avenues lined with neo-classical stone buildings of bourgeoise standing; most of this 'new' Paris is the Paris we see today. These Second Empire plans are in many cases still applied today, as the city of Paris is still imposing the then-defined "alignement" law (building facades placed according to a pre-defined street width) on many new constructions. A building's height was also defined according to the width of the street it lines, and Paris' building code has seen few changes since the mid-19th century to allow for higher constructions. It is for this reason that Paris is mainly a "flat" city.
Paris' unchanging borders, strict building codes and lack of developable land have together contributed in creating a phenomenon called muséification (or "museumification") as, at the same time as they strive to preserve Paris' historical past, existing laws make it difficult to build within the city limits the larger buildings and utilities needed for a growing population. Many of Paris' institutions and economic infrastructure are already located in, or are planning on moving to, the suburbs. The financial (La Défense) business district, the main food wholesale market (Rungis), major renowned schools (École Polytechnique, HEC, ESSEC, INSEAD, etc.), world famous research laboratories (in Saclay or Évry), the largest sport stadium (Stade de France), and some ministries (namely the Ministry of Transportation) are located outside of the city of Paris. The National Archives of France are due to relocate to the northern suburbs before 2010. The need for a larger Paris is largely acknowledged by the French government. As of November 2007, discussions for such a larger Paris have begun, though which suburbs should be included in this larger Paris is unresolved. In any case, such an extension will not occur before the French city-hall elections, scheduled in the spring of 2008.
Districts and historical centres
City of Paris
- Place de la Bastille (4th, 11th and 12th arrondissements, right bank) a district of great historical significance, not only for Paris, but for the whole of France. Because of its historical value the square is often used for political demonstrations, including the massive anti-CPE demonstration of March 2006.
- Champs-Élysées (8th arrondissement, right bank) is a seventeenth century garden-promenade turned avenue connecting the Concorde and Arc de Triomphe.It is one of the many tourist attractions and a major shopping street of Paris. This avenue has been called la plus belle avenue du monde ("the most beautiful avenue in the world").
- Place de la Concorde (8th arrondissement, right bank) is at the foot of the Champs-Élysées, built as the "Place Louis XV", site of the infamous guillotine. The Egyptian obelisk is Paris' "oldest monument". On this place, on either side of the Rue Royale there are two identical stone buildings: the eastern one houses the French Naval Ministry, the western the luxurious Hôtel de Crillon. Nearby Place Vendôme is famous for its fashionable and deluxe hotels (Hotel Ritz and Hôtel de Vendôme) and its jewellers. Many famous fashion designers have had their salons in the square.
- Les Halles (1st arrondissement, right bank) was formerly Paris' central meat and produce market, since the late 1970s a major shopping centre around an important metro connection station (Châtelet-Les Halles, the biggest in Europe). The past Les Halles was destroyed in 1971 and replaced by the Forum des Halles. The central market of Paris, the biggest wholesale food market in the world, was transferred to Rungis, in the southern suburbs.
- Le Marais (3rd and 4th arrondissements) is a trendy Right Bank district. It is a very culturally open place.
- Avenue Montaigne (8th arrondissement), next to the Champs-Élysées, is home to luxury brand labels such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton (LVMH), Dior and Givenchy.
- Montmartre (18th arrondissement, right bank) is a historic area on the Butte, home to the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur. Montmartre has always had a history with artists and has many studios and cafés of many great artists in that area.
- Montparnasse (14th arrondissement) is a historic Left Bank area famous for artists' studios, music halls, and café life. The large Montparnasse - Bienvenüe métro station and the lone Tour Montparnasse skyscraper are located there.
- L'Opéra (9th arrondissement, right bank) is the area around the Opéra Garnier is a home to the capital's densest concentration of both department stores and offices. A few examples are the Printemps and Galeries Lafayette grands magasins (department stores), and the Paris headquarters of financial giants such as Crédit Lyonnais and American Express.
- Quartier Latin (5th and 6th arrondissements, left bank) is a twelfth century scholastic centre formerly stretching between the Left Bank's Place Maubert and the Sorbonne campus. It is known for its lively atmosphere and many bistros. With various higher education establishments, such as the École Normale Supérieure, ParisTech and the Jussieu university campus make it a major educational centre in Paris, which also contributes to its atmosphere.
- Faubourg Saint-Honoré (8th arrondissement, right bank) is one of Paris' high-fashion districts, home to labels such as Hermès and Christian Lacroix.
In the Paris area
- La Défense (straddling the communes of Courbevoie, Puteaux, and Nanterre, west of the city proper) is a key suburb of Paris and is one of the largest business centres in the world. Built at the western end of a westward extension of Paris' historical axis from the Champs-Élysées, La Défense consists mainly of business highrises. Initiated by the French government in 1958, the district hosts of offices, making it the largest district in Europe specifically developed for business. The Grande Arche (Great Arch) of la Défense, which houses a part of the French Transports Minister's headquarters, ends the central Esplanade around which the district is organised.
- La Plaine Saint-Denis (straddling the communes of Saint-Denis, Aubervilliers, and Saint-Ouen, immediately north of the 18th arrondissement, across the Périphérique ring road) is a formerly derelict manufacturing area which has undergone large-scale urban renewal in the last 10 years. It now hosts the Stade de France around which is being built the new business district of LandyFrance, with two RER stations (on RER line B and D) and possibly some skyscrapers. In the Plaine Saint-Denis are also located most of France's television studios as well as some major movie studios.
- Val de Seine (straddling the 15th arrondissement and the communes of Issy-les-Moulineaux and Boulogne-Billancourt to the south-west of central Paris) is the new media hub of Paris and France, hosting the headquarters of most of France's TV networks (TF1 in Boulogne-Billancourt, France 2 in the 15th arrondissement, Canal+ and the international channels France 24 and Eurosport in Issy-les-Moulineaux), as well as several telecommunication and IT companies such as Neuf Cegetel in Boulogne-Billancourt or Microsoft's Europe, Africa & Middle East regional headquarters in Issy-les-Moulineaux.
Monuments and landmarks
Three of the most famous Parisian landmarks are the twelfth century cathedral Notre Dame de Paris on the Île de la Cité, the nineteenth century Eiffel Tower, and the Napoleonic Arc de Triomphe. The Eiffel Tower was a "temporary" construction by Gustave Eiffel for the 1889 Universal Exposition but the tower was never dismantled and is now an enduring symbol of Paris. The Historical axis is a line of monuments, buildings and thoroughfares that run in a roughly straight line from the city centre westwards: the line of monuments begins with the Louvre and continues through the Tuileries Gardens, the Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe centred in the Place de l'Étoile circus. From the 1960s the line was prolonged even further west to the La Défense business district dominated by square-shaped triumphal Grande Arche of its own; this district hosts most of the tallest skyscrapers in the Paris urban area. The Invalides museum is the burial place for many great French soldiers, including Napoleon, and the Panthéon church is where many of France's illustrious men and women are buried. The former Conciergerie prison held some prominent Ancien Régime members before their deaths during the French Revolution. Another symbol of the Revolution are the two Statues of Liberty located on the Île des Cygnes on the Seine and in the Luxembourg Garden. A larger version of the statues was sent as a gift from France to America in 1886 and now stands in New York City's harbour.The Palais Garnier built in the later Second Empire period, houses the Paris Opera and the Paris Opera Ballet, while the former palace of the Louvre now houses one of the most famous museums in the world. The Sorbonne is the most famous part of the University of Paris and is based in the centre of the Latin Quarter. Apart from Notre Dame de Paris, there are several other ecclesiastical masterpieces including the Gothic thirteenth century Sainte-Chapelle palace chapel and the Église de la Madeleine.
Parks and gardens
Two of Paris' oldest and famous gardens are the Tuileries Garden, created from the 16th century for a palace on the banks of the Seine near the Louvre, and the Left bank Luxembourg Garden, another formerly private garden belonging to a château built for the Marie de' Medici in 1612. The Jardin des Plantes, created by Louis XIII's doctor Guy de La Brosse for the cultivation of medicinal plants, was Paris' first public garden.
A few of Paris' other large gardens are Second Empire creations: the formerly suburban parks of Montsouris, Parc des Buttes Chaumont and Parc Monceau (formerly known as the "folie de Chartres"), were creations of Napoleon III's engineer Jean-Charles Alphand and the landscape and are enjoyed by all ages. Another project executed under the orders of Baron Haussmann was the re-sculpting of Paris' western Bois de Boulogne forest-parklands; the Bois de Vincennes, on the city's opposite eastern end, received a similar treatment in years following.
Newer additions to Paris' park landscape are the Parc de la Villette, built by the architect Bernard Tschumi on the location of Paris' former slaughterhouses, the Parc André Citroën and gardens being lain to the periphery along the traces of its former circular "Petite Ceinture" railway line: Promenade Plantée.
Cemeteries
Paris' main cemetery was located to its outskirts on its Left Bank from the beginning of its history, but this changed with the rise of Catholicism and the construction of churches towards the city centre, many of them having adjoining burial grounds for use by their parishes. Generations of a growing city population soon filled these cemeteries to overflowing, creating sometimes very unsanitary conditions: condemned from 1786, the contents of all Paris' parish cemeteries were transferred to a renovated section of Paris' then suburban stone mines outside the Left Bank "Porte d'Enfer" city gate (today 14th arrondissement's place Denfert-Rochereau). After a tentative creation of several smaller suburban cemeteries, Napoleon Bonaparte provided a more definitive solution in the creation of three massive Parisian cemeteries to the outside of the Fermiers-Généraux city tax walls; Open from 1804, these were the cemeteries of Père Lachaise, Montmartre, Montparnasse, and later Passy.
When Paris annexed all communes to the inside of its much larger ring of suburban fortifications in 1860, its cemeteries were once again within its city walls. 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 Bobigny-Pantin, the Cimetière Parisien d'Ivry and the Cimetière Parisien de Bagneux.
Culture
Opera & theatre
Paris' largest opera houses are the 19th century Opéra Garnier (historical Paris Opéra) and modern Opéra Bastille; the former tends towards the more classic ballets and operas, and the latter provides a mixed repertoire of classic and modern. In middle of 19th century there were active two other competing opera houses: Opéra-Comique (which still exists to this day) and Theatre Lyrique (which in modern times changed its profile and name to Théâtre de la Ville).
Theatre traditionally has occupied a large place in Parisian culture. This still holds true today, although, perhaps strangely, many of its most popular actors today are also stars of French television. Some of Paris' major theatres include Bobino, Théâtre Mogador and the Théâtre de la Gaîté-Montparnasse. Some Parisian theatres have also doubled as concert halls. Many of France's greatest musical legends, such as Édith Piaf, Maurice Chevalier, Georges Brassens and Charles Aznavour, found their fame in Parisian concert halls: legendary yet still-showing examples of these are Le Lido, Bobino, l'Olympia, la Cigale and le Splendid.
The Élysées-Montmartre, much reduced from its original size, is a concert hall today. The New Morning is one of few Parisian clubs still holding jazz concerts, but the same also specialises in 'indie' music. More recently, the Le Zénith hall in Paris' La Villette quarter and a "parc-omnisports" stadium in Bercy serve as large-scale rock concert halls.
Cuisine
Paris' culinary reputation has its base in the many origins of its inhabitants. With the early-19th century railways and ensuing industrial revolution came a flood of migration that brought with it all the gastronomical diversity of France's many different regions, and maintained through 'local speciality' restaurants catering to the tastes of people from all.
Hotels were another result of widespread travel and tourism, especially Paris' late-19th century Expositions Universelles (World's Fairs). Of the most luxurious of these, the Hôtel Ritz appeared in the Place Vendôme from 1898, and the Hôtel de Crillon opened its doors on the north side of the place de la Concorde from 1909.
Movies
Parisians tend to share the same movie-going trends as many of the world's global cities, that is to say with a dominance of Hollywood-generated film entertainment. French cinema comes a close second, with major directors (réalisateurs) such as Claude Lelouch, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol 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. A specialty of Paris is its very large network of small movie theatres: on a given week the movie fan has the choice between around 300 old or new movies from all over the world.
Many of Paris' concert/dance halls were transformed into movie theatres when the media became popular from the 1930s. Later most of the largest cinemas were divided into multiple, smaller rooms: Paris' largest cinema today is by far le Grand Rex theatre with 2,800 seats, while other cinemas all have fewer than 1,000 seats. There is now a trend toward modern multiplexes that contain more than 10 or 20 screens.
Tourism
Paris has always been a destination for traders, students and those on religious pilgrimages, but its 'tourist industry' began on a large scale only with the appearance of rail travel, namely from state organisation of France's rail network from 1848. Among Paris' first mass attractions drawing international interest were, from 1855, the above-mentioned Expositions Universelles that would bring Paris many new monuments, namely the Eiffel Tower from 1889. These, in addition to the capital's Second Empire embellishments, did much to make the city itself the attraction it is today.
Paris' museums and monuments are among its highest-esteemed attractions; tourism has motivated both the city and national governments to create new ones. The city's most prized museum, the Louvre, welcomes over 8 million visitors a year, being by far the world's most visited art museum. The city's cathedrals are another main attraction: its Notre Dame de Paris and the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur receive 12 million and eight million visitors respectively. The Eiffel Tower, by far Paris' most famous monument, averages over six million visitors per year and more than 200 millions since its construction. Disneyland Resort Paris is a major tourist attraction not only for visitors to Paris, but to Europe as well, with 14.5 million visitors in 2007.
The Louvre is one of the largest and most famous museums, housing many works of art, including the Mona Lisa (La Joconde) and the Venus de Milo statue. Works by Pablo Picasso and Auguste Rodin are found in Musée Picasso and Musée Rodin respectively, while the artistic community of Montparnasse is chronicled at the Musée du Montparnasse. Starkly apparent with its service-pipe exterior, the Centre Georges Pompidou, also known as Beaubourg, houses the Musée National d'Art Moderne. Art and artifacts from the Middle Ages and Impressionist eras are kept in Musée Cluny and Musée d'Orsay respectively, the former with the prized tapestry cycle The Lady and the Unicorn. Paris' newest (and third largest) museum, the Musée du quai Branly, opened its doors in June 2006 and houses art from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas.
Many of Paris' once-popular local establishments have come to cater to the tastes and expectations of tourists, rather than local patrons. Le Lido, The Moulin Rouge cabaret-dancehall, for example, are a staged dinner theatre spectacle, a dance display that was once but one aspect of the cabaret's former atmosphere. All of the establishment's former social or cultural elements, such as its ballrooms and gardens, are gone today. Much of Paris' hotel, restaurant and night entertainment trades have become heavily dependent on tourism, with results not always positive for Parisian culture.
Sports
Paris' most popular sport clubs are the football club Paris Saint-Germain FC, the basketball team Paris Basket Racing, and the rugby union club Stade Français. The 80,000-seat Stade de France was built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup and is used for football and rugby union, and is used annually for French rugby team's home matches of the Six Nations Championship and sometimes for big matches for the Stade Français rugby team.
In addition to Paris Saint-Germain FC, the city has a number of other amateur football clubs: Paris FC, Red Star, RCF Paris and Stade Français Paris. The last is the football section of the omnisport club of the same name, most notable for its rugby team.
The city's major rugby side is Stade Français. Racing Métro 92 Paris (who now play in Rugby Pro D2) is another rugby team, which actually contested the first ever final against Stade Français in 1892. Paris also hosted the 1900 and 1924 Olympic Games and was venue for the 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups.
Although the starting point and the route of the famous Tour de France varies each year, the final stage always finishes in Paris and 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 near the Bois de Boulogne, is one of the four Grand Slam events of the world professional tennis tour. The 2006 UEFA Champions League Final between Arsenal and FC Barcelona was played in the Stade de France. Paris hosted the 2007 Rugby World Cup final at Stade de France on 20 October 2007.
Economy
With a 2005 GDP of €478.7 billion (US$595.3 billion), the Paris region has one of the highest GDPs in Europe, making it an engine of the global economy: were it a country, it would rank as the fourteenth largest economy in the world. The Paris Region is France's premier centre of economic activity: while its population accounted for 18.7% of the total population of metropolitan France in 2005, its GDP was about 28.5% of the same. Activity in the Paris urban area, though diverse, doesn't have a leading specialised industry (such as Los Angeles with entertainment industries or London and New York with financial industries in addition to their other activities). Recently the Paris economy has been shifting towards high value-added service industries (finance, IT services, etc.) and high-tech manufacturing (electronics, optics, aerospace, etc).
The Paris region's most intense economic activity through the central Hauts-de-Seine département and suburban La Défense business district places Paris' economic centre to the west of the city, in a triangle between the Opéra Garnier, La Défense and the Val de Seine. Paris' administrative borders have little consequences on the limits of its economic activity: although most workers commute from the suburbs to work in the city, many commute from the city to work in the suburbs.
Although the Paris economy is largely dominated by services, it remains an important manufacturing powerhouse of Europe, especially in industrial sectors such as automobiles, aeronautics, and electronics. Over recent decades, the local economy has moved towards high value-added activities, in particular business services.
The 1999 census indicated that of the 5,089,170 persons employed in the Paris urban area, 16.5% worked in business services, 13.0% in commerce (retail and wholesale trade), 12.3% in manufacturing, 10.0% in public administrations and defence, 8.7% in health services, 8.2% in transportation and communications, 6.6% in education, and the remaining 24.7% in many other economic sectors. Among the manufacturing sector, the largest employers were the electronic and electrical industry (17.9% of the total manufacturing workforce in 1999) and the publishing and printing industry (14.0% of the total manufacturing workforce), with the remaining 68.1% of the manufacturing workforce distributed among many other industries. Tourism and tourist related services employ 6.2% of Paris' workforce, and 3.6% of all workers within the Paris Region.
Demographics
The population of the city of Paris was 2,125,246 at the 1999 census, lower than its historical peak of 2.9 million in 1921. The city's population loss mirrors the experience of most other core cities in the developed world that have not expanded their boundaries. The principal factors in the process 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 improved affluence among working families. The city's population loss was one of the most severe among international municipalities and the largest for any that had achieved more than 2,000,000 residents. These losses are generally seen as negative for the city; the city administration is trying to reverse them with some success, as the population estimate of July 2004 showed a population increase for the first time since 1954, reaching a total of 2,144,700 inhabitants.
Density
Paris is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Its density, excluding the outlying woodland parks of Boulogne and Vincennes, was 24,448 inhabitants per square kilometre (63,320/sq mi) in the 1999 official census, which could be compared only with some Asian megapolis. Even including the two woodland areas its population density was 20,164 inhabitants per square kilometre (52,224.5/sq mi), the fifth most densely populated commune in France following Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, Vincennes, Levallois-Perret, and Saint-Mandé, all of which border the city proper. The most sparsely populated quarters are the western and central office and administration-focussed arrondissements. The city's population is densest in the northern and eastern arrondissements; the 11th arrondissement had a density of 40,672 inhabitants per square kilometre (105,340/sq mi) in 1999, and some of the same arrondissement's eastern quarters had densities close to 100,000/km² (260,000/sq mi) in the same year.Paris agglomeration
The City of Paris covers an area much smaller than the urban area of which it is the core. At present, Paris' real urbanisation, defined by the pôle urbain (urban area) statistical area, covers , or an area about 26 times larger than the city itself. The administration of Paris' urban growth is divided between itself and its surrounding départements: Paris' closest ring of three adjoining departments, or petite couronne ("small ring") are fully saturated with urban growth, and the ring of four departments outside of these, the grande couronne départements, are only covered in their inner regions by Paris' urbanisation. These eight départements form the larger administrative Île-de-France région; most of this region is filled, and overextended in places, by the Paris aire urbaine.The Paris agglomeration has shown a steady rate of growth since the end of the late 16th century French Wars of Religion, save brief setbacks during the French Revolution and World War II. Suburban development has accelerated in recent years: with an estimated total of 11.4 million inhabitants for 2005, the Île-de-France région shows a rate of growth double that of the 1990s.
Immigration
By law, French censuses do not ask questions regarding ethnicity or religion, but do gather information concerning country of birth. From this it is still possible to determine that the Paris and its aire urbaine (metropolitan area) is one of the most multi-cultural in Europe: at the 1999 census, 19.4% of its total population was born outside of metropolitan France. At the same census, 4.2% of the Paris aire urbaine's population were recent immigrants (i.e people who migrated to France between the 1990 and 1999 censuses), in their majority from mainland China and Africa.The first wave of international migration to Paris started as early as in 1820 with the arrivals of German peasants fleeing the agricultural crisis in Germany. Several waves of immigration followed continuously until today: Italians and central European Jews during the 19th century; Russians after the revolution of 1917 and Armenians escaping from the genocide; colonial citizens during World War I and later; Poles between the two world wars; Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese and North Africans from the 1950s to the 1970s; North African Jews after the independence of those countries; Africans and Asians since then.
Administration
Paris, its administrative limits unchanged since 1860, is one of few cities that has not evolved politically with its real demographic growth; this issue is at present being discussed in plans for a "Grand Paris" (Greater Paris) that will extend Paris' administrative limits to embrace much more of its urban tissue.Capital of France
Paris is the capital of France, and therefore 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 France 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 also 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. The President of the Senate, the second highest public official in France after the President of the Republic, resides in the "Petit Luxembourg", a smaller palace annex 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 tries most 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, which is an advisory body which is the ultimate authority on the constitutionality of laws and government decrees, also meets in the Palais Royal.
City government
Paris has been a commune (municipality) since 1834 (and also briefly between 1790 and 1795). At the 1790 division (during the French Revolution) of France into communes, and again in 1834, Paris was a city only half its modern size, but in 1860 it annexed bordering communes, some entirely, to create the new administrative map of twenty municipal arrondissements the city still has today. These municipal subdivisions describe a clockwise spiral outward from its most central, the 1st arrondissement.
In 1790, Paris became the préfecture (seat) of the Seine département, which covered much of the Paris region. In 1968, it was split into four smaller ones: the city of Paris became a distinct département of its own, retaining the Seine's departmental number of 75 (originating from the Seine département's position in France's alphabetical list), while three new départements of Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne were created and given the numbers 92, 93 and 94 respectively. The result of this division is that today Paris' limits as a département are exactly those of its limits as a commune, a situation unique in France.
Municipal offices
Each of Paris' 20 arrondissements has a directly elected council (conseil d'arrondissement), which in turn elects an arrondissement mayor. A selection of members from each arrondissement council form the Council of Paris (conseil de Paris), which in turn elects the mayor of Paris.
In medieval times Paris was governed by a merchant-elected municipality whose head was the provost of the merchants: in addition to regulating city commerce, the provost of the merchants was responsible for some civic duties such as the guarding of city walls and the cleanliness of city streets. The creation of the provost of Paris from the 13th century diminished the merchant Provost's responsibilities and powers considerably: a direct representative of the king, in a role resembling somewhat the préfet of later years, the Provost of Paris oversaw the application and execution of law and order in the city and its surrounding prévôté (county). Many functions from both provost offices were transferred to the office of the crown-appointed lieutenant general of police upon its creation in 1667.
Paris' last Prévôt des marchands was assassinated the afternoon of the 14th of July 1789 uprising that was the French Revolution Storming of the Bastille. Paris became an official "commune" from the creation of the administrative division on 14 December the same year, and its provisional "Paris commune" revolutionary municipality was replaced with the city's first municipal constitution and government from 9 October 1790. Through the turmoil of the 1794 Thermidorian Reaction, it became apparent that revolutionary Paris' political independence was a threat to any governing power: the office of mayor was abolished the same year, and its municipal council one year later.
Although the municipal council was recreated in 1834, Paris spent most of the 19th and 20th centuries, along with the larger Seine département of which it was a centre, under the direct control of the State-appointed préfet of the Seine, in charge of general affairs there; the state-appointed Prefect of Police was in charge of police in the same jurisdiction. Paris, save for a few brief occasions, would have no mayor until 1977, and the Paris Prefecture of Police is still under state control today.
Despite its dual existence as commune and département, Paris has a single council to govern both; the Council of Paris, presided by the mayor of Paris, meets either as a municipal council (conseil municipal) or as a departmental council (conseil général) depending on the issue to be debated.
Paris' modern administrative organisation still retains some traces of the former Seine département jurisdiction. The Prefecture of Police (also directing Paris' fire brigades), for example, has still a jurisdiction extending to Paris' petite couronne of bordering three départements for some operations such as fire protection or rescue operations, and is still directed by France's national government. Paris has no municipal police force, although it does have its own brigade of traffic wardens.
Capital of the Île-de-France région
As part of a 1961 nation-wide administrative effort to consolidate regional economies, Paris as a département became the capital of the new région of the District of Paris, renamed the Île-de-France région in 1976. It encompasses the Paris département and its seven closest départements. Its regional council members, since 1986, have been chosen by direct elections. The prefect of the Paris département (who served as the prefect of the Seine département before 1968) is also prefect of the Île-de-France région, although the office lost much of its power following the creation of the office of mayor of Paris in 1977.Intercommunality
Few of the above changes have taken into account Paris' existence as an agglomeration. Unlike in most of France's major urban areas such as Lille and Lyon, there is no intercommunal entity in the Paris urban area, no intercommunal council treating the problems of the region's dense urban core as a whole; Paris' alienation of its suburbs is indeed a problem today, and considered by many to be the main causes of civil unrest such as the suburban riots in 2005. A direct result of these unfortunate events were propositions for a more efficient metropolitan structure to cover the city of Paris and some of the suburbs, ranging from a socialist idea of a loose "metropolitan conference" (conférence métropolitaine) to the right-wing idea of a more integrated Grand Paris ("Greater Paris").Education
In the early ninth century, the emperor Charlemagne mandated all churches to give lessons in reading, writing and basic arithmetic to their parishes, and cathedrals to give a higher education in the finer arts of language, physics, music and theology; at that time Paris was already one of France's major cathedral towns and beginning its rise to fame as a scholastic centre. By the early 13th century the Île de la Cité Notre-Dame cathedral school had many famous teachers, and the controversial teachings of some of these led to the creation of a separate Left-Bank Sainte-Genevieve University that would become the centre of Paris' scholastic Latin quarter best represented by the Sorbonne university.Twelve centuries later, education in Paris and the Paris region (Île-de-France région) employs approximately 330,000 persons, 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.
Primary and secondary education
Paris is home to several of France's most prestigious high-schools such as Lycée Louis-le-Grand and Lycée Henri-IV. Other high-schools of international renown in the Paris area include the Lycée International de Saint Germain-en-Laye and the École Active Bilingue Jeannine Manuel.
Higher education
As of the academic year 2004-2005, the Paris Region's 17 public universities, with its 359,749 registered students, is the largest concentration of university students in Europe. The Paris Region's prestigious grandes écoles and scores of university-independent private and public schools have an additional 240,778 registered students, that together with the university population creates a grand total of 600,527 students in higher education that year.
Universities
The cathedral of Notre-Dame was the first centre of higher education before the creation of the University of Paris. The universitas was chartered by King Philip Augustus in 1200, as a corporation granting teachers (and their students) the right to rule themselves independently from crown law and taxes. At the time, many classes were held in open air. Non-Parisian students and teachers would stay in hostels, or "colleges", created for the boursiers coming from afar. Already famous by the 13th century, the University of Paris had students from all of Europe. Paris' Rive Gauche scholastic centre, dubbed "Latin Quarter" as classes were taught in Latin then, would eventually regroup around the college created by Robert de Sorbon from 1257, the Collège de Sorbonne. The University of Paris in the 19th century had six faculties: law, science, medicine, pharmaceutical studies, literature and theology.Following the 1968 student riots, there was an extensive reform of the University of Paris, in an effort to disperse the centralised student body. The following year, the formerly unique University of Paris was split between thirteen autonomous universities ("Paris I" to "Paris XIII") located throughout the City of Paris and its suburbs. Each of these universities inherited only some of the departments of the old University of Paris, and are not generalist universities. Paris I, II, V and X, inherited the Law School; Paris V inherited the School of Medicine as well; Paris VI and VII inherited the scientific departments; etc.
In 1991, four more universities were created in the suburbs of Paris, reaching a total of seventeen public universities for the Paris (Île-de-France) région. These new universities were given names (based on the name of the suburb in which they are located) and not numbers like the previous thirteen: University of Cergy-Pontoise, University of Évry Val d'Essonne, University of Marne-la-Vallée and University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. Other institutions include the University of Westminster's Centre for International Studies, the American University of Paris, and the American Business School of Paris.
There is also a University of London Institute in Paris(ULIP) which offers undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in French Studies ratified by the University of London.
Grandes écoles
The Paris region hosts France's highest concentration of the prestigious grandes écoles, which are 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. The Paris area has a high number of engineering schools, led by the prestigious Paris Institute of Technology (ParisTech) which comprises several colleges such as École Polytechnique, École des Mines, École Centrale Paris, Supélec, Arts et Métiers, Télécom Paris, and École des Ponts et Chaussées. There are also many business schools, including , HEC, ESSEC, INSEAD, and ESCP-EAP European School of Management. Although the elite administrative school ENA has been relocated to Strasbourg, the political science school Sciences-Po is still located in Paris' Left bank 7th arrondissement.The grandes écoles system is supported by a number of preparatory schools which offer courses of two to three years duration called Classes Préparatoires, also known as classes prépas or simply prépas. These courses provide entry to the grandes écoles. Many of the best prépas are located in Paris, including Lycée Louis-le-Grand, Lycée Henri-IV, Lycée Saint-Louis, Lycée Janson de Sailly and Lycée Carnot. Two other top-ranking prépas (Lycée Hoche and Lycée Privé Sainte-Geneviève) are located in Versailles, near Paris. Student selection is based on school grades and teacher remarks. Prépas attract most of the best students in France and are known to be very demanding in terms of work load and psychological stress.
Transportation
The role of Paris as an international trade centre has caused its transportation system to develop considerably throughout history, and it continues its growth at a fast pace today. The public transit networks of the Paris region are coordinated by the Syndicat des transports d'Île-de-France (STIF), formerly Syndicat des transports parisiens (STP). The members of this syndicate are the Ile-de-France region and the eight departments of this region. The syndicate coordinates public transport and contracts it out to the RATP (operating 654 bus lines, the Métro, three tramway lines, and sections of the RER), the SNCF (operating suburban rails, a tramway line and the other sections of the RER) and the Optile consortium of private operators managing 1,070 minor bus lines.
The Métro is Paris' most important transportation system. The system, with 300 stations (384 stops) connected by of rails, comprises 16 lines, identified by numbers from 1 to 14, with two minor lines, 3bis and 7bis, so numbered because they used to be branches of their respective original lines, and only later became independent. In October 1998, the new line 14 was inaugurated after a 70-year hiatus in inaugurating fully new métro lines. Because of the short distance between stations on the Métro network, lines were too slow to be extended further into the suburbs as is the case in most other cities. As such, an additional express network, the RER, has been created since the 1960s to connect more distant parts of the urban area. The RER consists in the integration of modern city-centre subway and pre-existing suburban rail. Nowadays, the RER network comprises 5 lines, 257 stops and of rails.
Additionally, Paris is served by a light rail network of 4 lines, the tramway: Line T1 runs from Saint-Denis to Noisy-le-Sec, line T2 runs from La Défense to Issy, line T3 runs from Pont de Garigliano to Porte d'Ivry, line T4 runs from Bondy to Aulnay-sous-Bois.
Paris is a central hub of the national rail network. The six major railway stations, Gare du Nord, Gare Montparnasse, Gare de l'Est, Gare de Lyon, Gare d'Austerlitz, and Gare Saint-Lazare, are connected to three networks: the TGV serving 4 High-speed rail lines, the normal speed Corail trains, and the suburban rails (Transilien).
Paris offers a bike sharing system called Vélib' with more than 10,000 public bicycles distributed at 750 parking stations which can be rented for short and medium distances including one way trips.
Furthermore, Paris is served by two major airports: Orly Airport, which is south of Paris, and the Charles de Gaulle International Airport, nearby Roissy-en-France, which is one of the busiest in the world. A third and much smaller airport, Beauvais Tillé Airport, located in the town of Beauvais, to the north of the city, is used by charter and low-cost airlines. The fourth airport, Le Bourget nowadays only hosts business jets, air trade shows and the aerospace museum.
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 of highways and motorways. By road Brussels can be reached in three hours, Frankfurt in 6 hours and Barcelona in 12 hours. By train London is now just 2h 15min away, Brussels can be reached in more or less 1h30min, and the south of France with cities like Marseilles or Bordeaux in 3 hours.
Water and sanitation
Paris in its early history had only the Seine and Bièvre rivers for water. Later forms of irrigation were: a first-century Roman aqueduct from southerly Wissous (later left to ruin); sources from the Right bank hills from the late 11th century; from the 15th century an aqueduct built roughly along the path of the abandoned Wissous aqueduct; finally, from 1809, the canal de l'Ourcq provided Paris with water from less polluted rivers to the northeast of the capital. Paris would only have its first constant and plentiful source of drinkable water from the late 19th century: from 1857, the civil engineer Eugène Belgrand, under Napoleon III's Préfet Haussmann, oversaw the construction of a series of new aqueducts that brought sources 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' principal source of drinking water, and the remains of the old system, pumped into lower levels of the same reservoirs, were from then used for the cleaning of Paris' streets. This system is still a major part of Paris' modern water supply network.
Paris has over 2,400 km of underground passageways dedicated to the evacuation of Paris' liquid wastes. Most of these date from the late 19th century, a result of the combined plans of the Préfet Baron Haussmann and the civil engineer Eugène Belgrand to improve the then very unsanitary conditions in the Capital. Maintained by a round-the-clock service since their construction, only a small percentage of Paris' sewer réseau has needed complete renovation. The entire Paris network of sewers and collectors has been managed since the late 20th century by a computerised network system, known under the acronym "G.A.AS.PAR", that controls all of Paris' water distribution, even the flow of the river Seine through the capital.
International relations
Paris has one sister city and a number of partner cities.Sister city
- Rome, Italy, since 1956 (Seule Paris est digne de Rome; seule Rome est digne de Paris / Solo Parigi è degna di Roma; Solo Roma è degna di Parigi / "Only Paris is worthy of Rome; Only Rome is worthy of Paris").
Partner cities
- Algiers, Algeria, since 2003.
- Amman, Jordan, since 1987.
- Athens, Greece, since 2000.
- Beijing, China, since 1997.
- Beirut, Lebanon, since 1992.
- Berlin, Germany, since 1987.
- Buenos Aires, Argentina, since 1999.
- Cairo, Egypt, since 1985.
- Casablanca, Morocco, since 2004.
- Chicago, United States, since 1996.
- Copenhagen, Denmark, since 2005.
- Geneva, Switzerland, since 2002.
- Jakarta, Indonesia, since 1995.
- Kyoto, Japan, since 1958.
- Lisbon, Portugal, since 1998.
- London, United Kingdom, since 2001.
- Madrid, Spain, since 2000.
- Mexico City, Mexico, since 1999.
- Montreal, Canada, since 2006.
- Moscow, Russia, since 1992.
- Porto Alegre, Brazil, since 2001.
- Prague, Czech Republic, since 1997.
- Quebec City, Canada, since 2003.
- Rabat, Morocco, since 2004.
- Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, since 1997.
- Saint Petersburg, Russia, since 1997.
- San‘a’, Yemen, since 1987.
- San Francisco, United States, since 1996.
- Santiago, Chile, since 1997.
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, since 2004.
- Seoul, South Korea, since 1991.
- Karachi, Pakistan
- Sofia, Bulgaria, since 1998.
- Sydney, Australia, since 1998.
- Tbilisi, Georgia, since 1997.
- Tokyo, Japan, since 1982.
- Tunis, Tunisia, since 2004.
- Warsaw, Poland, since 1999.
- Washington, D.C., United States, since 2000.
- Yerevan, Armenia, since 1998.
See also
- Large Cities Climate Leadership Group
- Megacity
- Paris Exposition
- University of London Institute in Paris
References
Further reading
- Vincent Cronin (1989). Paris on the Eve, 1900-1914. New York: Harper Collins.
- Vincent Cronin (1994). Paris:City of Light, 1919-1939. New York: Harper Collins.
- Jean Favier (1997-04-23). Paris. Fayard.
- Jacques Hillairet (2005-04-22). Connaissance du Vieux Paris. Rivages.
- Colin Jones (2004). Paris: The Biography of a City. New York: Penguin Viking.
External links
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Saturday October 11, 2008 at 04:12:14 PDT (GMT -0700)
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