Overview
Planning Your Trip
Accommodations
Beyond Tourism
Study Abroad
Practical Information
Food
Sights And Activities
Museums
Shopping
Entertainment
Nightlife
Daytrips
Basics
The Seine River (“SEN”) flows from east to west, splitting the city into two sections: Rive Gauche (Left Bank) to the south and Rive Droite (Right Bank) to the north. Two islands in the Seine, Île de la Cité and neighboring Île St-Louis, are situated in the geographical center of the city. Central Paris is divided into 20 arrondissements (districts) that spiral clockwise outward from the center of the city, like the shell of an escargot. Each arrondissement is referred to by its number (e.g. the third, the sixteenth). In French, “third” is said troisième (TRWAZ-yem) and abbreviated “3ème”; “sixteenth” is seizième (SEZ-yem) and abbreviated “16ème.” The same goes for every arrondissement except the first, which is said premier (PREM-yay) and abbreviated 1er.
Although arrondissements are marked by official numerical divisions, Parisian neighborhoods often overlap more than one arrondissement. The Marais, for example, spans the 3 ème and 4 ème arrondissements. To ensure that our readers are branchés (literally, “plugged in,” or in-the-know), we have divided our coverage by neighborhood, which we subdivide into arrondissements where necessary. This is the structure that we use throughout the book.
Île de la Cité is situated in the very center of the Île de France, the geographical region surrounding Paris. From the 6th century, when Clovis crowned himself king of the Franks, until Charles V ...more
Châtelet-Les Halles (chat-lay-lays-al) is home to much of Paris’s royal history. Its most famous sight, the Louvre, was home to French kings for four centuries, but today, the bedchambers and dining ...more
The Marais is Paris’s comeback kid. With a name that literally translates to “swamp,” its origins are easy enough to discern—in short, it was all bog. Starting in the 13th century, the area began ...more
Named for the language used in the 5 ème ’s prestigious high schools and universities prior to 1798, the Latin Quarter (le quartier latin) is always buzzing with energy. The 5 ème has been in the intellectual ...more
Between the grass of the Champ de Mars and the fashionable side streets surrounding rue de Sèvres, the 7 ème offers the most touristy and the most intimate sights in Paris. The area became Paris’s ...more
The Champs-Élysées area is past its prime. Its boulevards are still lined with the vast mansions, expensive shops, and grandiose monuments that keep the tourists coming, but there’s little sense ...more
The 9 ème is an example of Paris’s cultural extremes. The lower 9 ème gleams with the magnificent Palais Garnier and the haute couture in Paris’ world-famous department stores, the Galeries Lafayette ...more
Revolutionary fervor once gripped place de la République, but Haussmann doused their moxie with some clever urban planning (see Haussmannia). Since then, the 10 ème has quieted down. The area has striking ...more
As its name attests, the Bastille (bah-steel) area is most famous for hosting the Revolution’s kick-off at the Bastille prison on July 14, 1789. Hundreds of years later, the French still storm this ...more
Until the 20th century, the 13 ème remained one of Paris’s poorest arrondissements, with conditions so terrible that Victor Hugo set Les Misérables there. Thankfully, the last two centuries have brought ...more
Named after the famous Greek mountain of lore (Mount Parnasse), Paris’s 14 ème revels in its bohemian reputation. During the 1920s, the quartier became a haven for the “Lost Generation,” intellectuals ...more
When Notre Dame was under construction in the 12th century, this now-elegant suburb was little more than some tiny woodland villages. With the architectural revolution of Haussmann, however, the area ...more
The 17 ème is a diverse district where bourgeois turns working class and back again within a block. The arrondissement’s eastern and southern parts share the bordering 8 ème and 16 ème ’s aristocratic ...more
Like Montparnasse and the Latin Quarter, Montmartre glows with the lustre of its bohemian past. Named “Mount of the Martyr” for St. Denis, who was beheaded there by the Romans in AD 260, the hill ...more
The 19 ème and the 20 ème , both primarily working-class, have recently flourished as centers of Parisian bohemia. Between the romantic Parc des Buttes Chaumont and the famed Cimetière du Père Lachaise ...more
The 20 ème ’s population swelled in the mid-19th century, when Hausmann’s architectural reforms drove working-class Parisians from the central city. Thousands migrated east to Belleville (the northern ...more
Parisian banlieues (suburbs) have gained attention as sites of poverty and racism, though in fact they run the socioeconomic gamut. The nearest suburbs, the proche-banlieues, are accessible by metro ...more
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