Paris

Paris is the capital city of France.

A river called the Seine flows through the middle. Paris has a tall iron tower, old churches and huge museums. More than two million people live there.

Paris is the capital of France, in the north-central part of the country. It began on an island in the Seine River and spread far across both banks. About 2.1 million people lived in the city in 2023, and in the early 2000s more than 10 million lived in Greater Paris, the city and the towns around it.

For so many people, the city itself is small: no corner is more than about 10 kilometers from the square in front of Notre-Dame. It is divided into 20 districts called arrondissements. Its nickname, the City of Light, dates from the Enlightenment, an age of new ideas.

Paris stands on the Seine about 375 km upstream from the river's mouth on the English Channel, in the middle of the farming region called the Paris Basin. People were living on the site by about 7600 BCE. The city has spread out from the Île de la Cité, an island in the river, far beyond both banks.

The city proper covers only 105 km², and Britannica notes that no corner is farther than about 10 km from the square in front of Notre-Dame; the metropolitan area covers about 2,300 km². The city's official reference population for 2023 was 2,103,778. It is one of the eight départements of the Île-de-France region and is divided into 20 arrondissements, numbered outward from the center in a spiral like a snail's shell, each with its own mayor and town hall.

Paris has many famous places.

The Eiffel Tower is made of iron. Notre-Dame is a very old cathedral on an island. The Louvre is a giant art museum with a glass pyramid. The Arc de Triomphe is a huge stone arch.

The Eiffel Tower was built from iron for the World's Fair of 1889, and with its antennas it is now 330 meters tall. Notre-Dame, a cathedral begun in 1163, stands on the island in the Seine. In 2019 a fire destroyed its roof and spire; it reopened on December 8, 2024.

The Louvre began as a fortress in 1190 and became a museum in 1793. Today visitors walk in through a glass pyramid, and 9 million came in 2025. The Arc de Triomphe took 30 years to build and opened in 1836. Across the river, the Musée d'Orsay fills an old railway station.

UNESCO listed the riverbanks as "Paris, Banks of the Seine" in 1991: from the Louvre to the Eiffel Tower and from the Place de la Concorde to the Grand and Petit Palais, the city's history can be read from the river. UNESCO calls Notre-Dame and the Sainte-Chapelle architectural masterpieces.

The Louvre was built as a fortress in 1190 under Philippe Auguste, became a royal residence in 1364 and opened as a museum in 1793; the Pyramid project of 1981 to 1989 gave it its 21 m glass entrance. Notre-Dame's foundation stone was laid in 1163; the fire of April 15, 2019 destroyed much of its roof and its 19th-century spire, and it reopened on December 8, 2024. The Arc de Triomphe, planned by the architects Jean-François Chalgrin and Jean-Arnaud Raymond, was inaugurated on July 29, 1836 after 30 years of work. The Musée d'Orsay, opened in 1986, occupies Victor Laloux's railway station and hotel, built for the 1900 World's Fair, and shows art made mainly in France between 1848 and 1914.

Paris is not too hot and not too cold.

Summer days are warm. Winter days are chilly. Sometimes it snows, but not very often. The weather can change quickly, so bring a coat!

Paris lies on a plain fairly close to the sea, and the Gulf Stream, a warm ocean current, gives it a mild influence, so its climate is temperate: usually neither very hot nor very cold. In July the average temperature is about 19 °C, and in January it is about 3 °C.

The weather can change quickly, especially in winter and spring, when the wind can feel sharp and cold. The temperature drops below freezing for about a month each year, and snow falls on about half of those days. Tens of thousands of trees, mostly plane trees, line the streets.

Lying in a plain on the western side of Europe, fairly close to the sea, Paris benefits from the mild influence of the Gulf Stream and has a fairly temperate climate. Britannica gives an annual average of roughly 12 °C, about 19 °C in July and about 3 °C in January. The weather is changeable, above all in winter and spring, when winds can be sharp and cold. Temperatures fall below freezing for about a month a year, and snow falls on roughly half of those days.

The city sits in a hollow carved by the Seine, from 26 m above sea level in the Grenelle area to 130 m on the hill of Montmartre. Forests of beech and oak ring the region and are called the "lungs of Paris" because they help clean the air. Tens of thousands of street trees, mostly plane trees with some chestnuts, line the avenues, and the city has worked to reduce air pollution.

Many people in Paris were born somewhere else.

Some came from other parts of France. Some came from other countries. Paris has big parks too. One park is on top of an old railway bridge!

In 1850 about 600,000 people lived in Paris. By 1870 there were more than a million, and the city itself reached its peak of about 2.9 million in 1931. Since then many families have moved to the towns around Paris, where homes have more space.

More Parisians were born outside the city than inside it. Most come from other parts of France, and more than one in ten were born in another country, so many shops, restaurants and neighborhoods have a taste of other regions and countries. For green space there are two big parks made from old royal land, the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes, and the Promenade Plantée, a garden walk built on an old railway viaduct.

Paris grew fast with industry: about 600,000 inhabitants in 1850, more than 1,000,000 by 1870. The city proper peaked at about 2,900,000 in 1931 and fell to roughly 2,200,000 by 2012 as rehousing lowered its density and families left for roomier homes in the suburbs; almost half of households consist of one person. Early in the 21st century the city's population began to grow slowly again and to get younger.

Paris-born residents are outnumbered by people born elsewhere. Most are French, but more than one-tenth of the population was born abroad, and many shops, restaurants and neighborhoods carry a regional or international flavor. Under Napoleon III two ancient royal military preserves became the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes; the Promenade Plantée, an elevated parkway on an abandoned rail viaduct (first phase 1994), runs about 4.5 km, and Britannica calls it the world's first elevated park.