Paris: Facts & Related Content

Written and fact-checked by The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Paris, the capital of France, is located in the north-central portion of the country. It constitutes one of the départements of the Île-de-France administrative region and is France's most important centre of commerce and culture. The city is home to the Eiffel Tower, one of the world's premier tourist attractions, which opened to the public on May 15, 1889.

Facts

Birthplace Of	Alexandre Decamps • Edgar Degas • Paul Delaroche • Catherine Deneuve • Rudolf Diesel • Charles Baudelaire • Simone de Beauvoir • Henri Becquerel • Sarah Bernhardt • Juilette Binoche • Giovanni Boccaccio • Claude Chabrol • Charles VII • Jacques Chirac • Marion Cotillard • Pierre Curie • George du Maurier • Paul Gauguin • André Gide • Jean-Luc Godard • Jules Goncourt • Isabelle Huppert • Frédéric Joliot-Curie • Irène Joliot-Curie • René Lacoste • Pierre Charles L'Enfant • Gaston Leroux • Christian Louboutin • Louis VIII • Louis X • Yo-Yo Ma • Seán MacBride • Stéphane Mallarmé • Édouard Manet • Alexandre Millerand • Claude Monet • Gustave Moreau • Napoleon III • Auguste Rodin • Camille Saint-Saëns • Nicolas Sarkozy • Jean-Paul Sartre • Alexis de Tocqueville • François Villon • Voltaire • Émile Zola
Death Location Of	Yasser Arafat • Philip Astley • Honoré de Balzac • Bao Dai • Roland Gérard Barthes • Pierre Beauchamp • Samuel Beckett • Henri Bergson • Hector Berlioz • Louis Blériot • Louis Braille • Georges Braque • André Breton • Mary Cassatt • Claude Chabrol • Coco Chanel • Frédéric Chopin • Colette • Jacques Cousteau • Claude Debussy • Edgar Degas • Jacques Derrida • Diana, princess of Wales • Porfirio Díaz • Denis Diderot • Marlene Dietrich • Edward VIII • Gustave Eiffel • Léon Foucault • Michel Foucault • Joseph Fourier • Victor Hugo • Eugène Ionesco • John Paul Jones • Jean de La Fontaine • Claude Lévi-Strauss • Marie-Antoinette • Guy de Maupassant • François Mitterrand • Molière • Blaise Pascal • Camille Pissarro • Jean-Paul Sartre • Georges Seurat • Claude Simon • Voltaire • Oscar Wilde • Émile Zola
Location	Ville-de-Paris, Île-de-France, France
Latitude/Longitude	48.856614, 2.3522219
Size Of Area	41 sq mi (105 sq km)
Population	2,206,488 (city estimate, 2015)
Currency	euro
Language	French
Time Zone	Central European Time (CET) • Central European Summer Time (CEST)
Geographical Features	Seine River
Points Of Interest/Tourist Attractions	Bastille • Place de la Concorde • Eiffel Tower • Louvre Museum • Notre-Dame de Paris • Pompidou Centre • Grand Palais • Jardin des Plantes • Paris Zoo • Père-Lachaise Cemetery • Champs-Élysées • Bibliothèque Nationale de France • Promenade Plantée • Pont Neuf • Musée d'Orsay • Picasso Museum • Rodin Museum • Tuileries Palace
Headquarters Of	Agence France-Presse • Air France • BNP Paribas • Carrefour SA • Charbonnages de France • Le Crédit Lyonnais • Elf Aquitaine • European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company • European Space Agency • Le Figaro • Banque de France • France-Soir • France Telecom SA • International Astronomical Union • International Council of Women • International Federation of Human Rights • International New York Times • Le Journal des Débats • Larousse • Le Monde • Orchestre de Paris • Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie • Le Parisien • Pechiney • Reporters Without Borders • Rhône-Poulenc SA • Compagnie de Saint-Gobain-Pont-à-Mousson • Section d'Or • Société Générale • Total SA • Trilateral Commission • UNESCO
Related Events	Commune of Paris (1871) • Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day (1572) • Paris attacks of 2015 • Paris 1900 Olympic Games • Paris 1924 Olympic Games • Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920) • Siege of Paris (1870–1871) • Siege of Paris (885–886) • September Massacres (1792) • XYZ Affair

Did You Know?

The motto of Paris is "Fluctuat nec mergitur," a Latin phrase meaning "It is tossed by the waves but does not sink" (in reference to a ship).
In 2012 a Paris police report noted that there was only one stop sign in the city of Paris, situated in the 16th arrondissement at the exit of a building company; the sign was later removed.