Paris, Ile de France

Paris is the capital city of France, as well as the capital of the Île-de-France région, whose territory encompasses Paris and its suburbs. The city of Paris proper is also a département, called Paris département (French: département de Paris). It is a wonderful city for aimless wandering of which features a wide variety of style and décor and boasts a wide assortment of entertainment to satisfy even the most benign of tastes.

Paris, together with its suburbs and satellite cities, forms the Greater Paris metropolitan area, with a population estimated at 10.5 million as of January 2004. Paris is the third largest metropolitan area in Europe after Moscow and London.

Greater Paris metropolitan area, with a total GDP in 2003 higher than Brazil's and Russia's, is the largest financial and business center of Europe (alongside London), harboring more than 30% of France's white-collar population, as well as more than 40% of the headquarters of French companies, with the largest business district of Europe (La Défense), and the second-largest stock exchange in Europe (Euronext).

Known worldwide as the City of Lights (la Ville Lumière), Paris has been a major tourist destination and cultural hub for centuries. The city is renowned for the beauty of its architecture, its urban perspectives and avenues, as well as the wealth of its museums. The Seine River runs through the heart of Paris and is the site of the Notre Dame Cathedral and Louvre Museum to which divides the city into two parts: the Right Bank to the north and the smaller Left Bank to the south.

Formerly the capital of a colonial empire stretching over five continents, Paris is still regarded as the heart of the French-speaking world and has retained a strong international position, hosting the headquarters of the OECD and the UNESCO among others. This, combined with its financial, business, political, and tourism activities, has turned Paris into one of the major transportation hubs in the world. New York, London, Tokyo, and Paris are often listed as the four major global cities.

The original Latin name of Paris was Lutetia, or Lutetia Parisiorum, known in French as Lutèce. Lutetia was later dropped in favor of only Paris, based on the name of the Gallic Parisi tribe, whose name perhaps comes from the Celtic Gallic word parios, meaning "caldron", but this is not certain.

Traditionally Paris was known as Paname in French slang, but this vulgar appellation is gradually losing currency. ("I'm from Paname" (♫).)

The inhabitants of Paris are known as Parisians in English, as Parisiens in French. The pejorative term Parigot is sometimes used in French slang.

Locally, inhabitants of the Paris suburbs are known as banlieusards. Inhabitants of the whole Paris metropolitan area are known as Franciliens, i.e. from Île-de-France.

The name of the city comes from the name of a Gallic tribe (parisis) inhabiting the region at the time of the Roman conquest. The historical heart of Paris is the Île de la Cité, a small island now 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 (another island) occupied by elegant houses built in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Paris was occupied by a Gallic tribe until the Romans arrived in 52 BC. The invaders referred to the previous occupants as the Parisii, but called their new city Lutetia, meaning "marshy place". About 50 years later the city had spread to the left bank of the Seine, now known as the Latin Quarter, and was renamed "Paris".

Roman rule had ceased by 508, when Clovis the Frank made the city the capital of the Merovingian dynasty of the Franks. In 511, he commissioned the building of the cathedral of St.Etienne on the Île. Viking invasions during the 800s forced the Parisians to build a fortress on the Île de la Cité. On March 28, 845 Paris was sacked by Viking raiders, probably under Ragnar Lodbrok, who collected a huge ransom in exchange for leaving. The weakness of the late Carolingian kings of France led to the gradual rise in power of the Counts of Paris; Odo, Count of Paris was elected king of France by feudal lords while Charles III was also claiming the throne. Finally, in 987 Hugh Capet, count of Paris, was elected king of France by the great feudal lords after the last Carolingian king died.

During the 11th century the city spread to the Right Bank. In the 12th and 13th centuries, which included the reign of Philip II Augustus (1180 to 1223), the city grew strongly. Main thoroughfares were paved, the first Louvre was built as a fortress, and several churches, including the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, were constructed or begun. Several schools on the Left Bank were grouped together into the Sorbonne, which counts Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas among its early scholars. In the Middle Ages, Paris prospered as a trading and intellectual nucleus, interrupted temporarily when the Black Death struck in the 14th century, and again in the 15th century when urban revolts drove the royal court to abandon the city for almost 100 years. Under the reign of King Louis XIV, the Sun King, from 1643 to 1715, the royal residence was moved from Paris to nearby Versailles.

The French Revolution began with the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. Many of the conflicts in the next few years were between Paris and the outlying rural areas.

In 1870 the Franco-Prussian War ended in a siege of Paris, followed by The Paris Commune followed. It surrendered in 1871 after a winter of famine and bloodshed. The Eiffel Tower, the best-known landmark in Paris, was built in 1889 in a period of prosperity known as La Belle Époque (The Beautiful period). The famous Parisian Haussmann Style also dates back to this period, during which much of the Paris known today was planned and constructed.

In 1900 Paris hosted the 1900 Summer Olympics, and hosted them again in 1924 (1924 Summer Olympics).

In June 1940, several weeks after the German attack on France during World War II, Paris fell to German occupation forces, which remained there until late-August 1944. After the battle of Normandy, Paris was liberated when the German general Dietrich von Choltitz surrendered after skirmishes to the French 2nd Armoured Division commanded by Philippe de Hauteclocque backed by the Allies.

In the late-1960s, the Tour Montparnasse, a large, modern skyscraper, was constructed just south of the Jardin du Luxembourg. It is starkly out of place in its neighborhood and ruined many of Haussmann's carefully planned vistas; as such it was one of the most immediate causes for the changes in zoning and administrative rules that now keep all urban development outside the city limits (principally confining skyscrapers to La Défense).

Immigration
The metropolitan area of Paris is one of the most multi-cultural in Europe. At the 1999 census, 19.4% of the total population of the metropolitan area were born outside of metropolitan France.

As a comparison: at the 2001 UK census, 19.5% of the total population of the metropolitan area of London was born outside of the (metropolitan) United Kingdom, while at the 2000 US census 27.5% of the total population of the New York-Newark-Bridgeport metropolitan area was born outside of the United States (50 states), and 31.9% of the total population of the Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County metropolitan area was born outside of the United States (50 states).

Still at the 1999 French census, 4.2% of the total population of the metropolitan area of Paris were recent migrants (i.e. people who were not living in France in 1990). The most recent immigrants to Paris come essentially from mainland China and from Africa.

Monuments and landmarks
The Eiffel Tower - a "temporary" construction of Gustave Eiffel for the 1889 Universal Exposition
Arc de Triomphe - monument at the center of the Place de l'Étoile, commemorating the victories of France and honoring those who died in battle.
Les Invalides - museum and burial place of many great French soldiers, including Napoleon.
The Conciergerie - medieval building; former prison where some prominent members of the ancien régime stayed before their death during the French Revolution
Palais Garnier - Paris' central opera built in the later Second Empire period.
Cathedral of Notre Dame on the Île de la Cité - Paris' 12th-century ecclesiastical centrepiece
The Sorbonne - the University of Paris, the centre of Paris' Latin Quarter
Statue of Liberty - a smaller version of the New York City harbor statue which France gave to the United States in 1886, located on the Île des Cygnes on the Seine. Another version is in the Luxembourg Garden.
The Panthéon - beautiful church and tomb of a number of France's illustrious men and women
Sainte-Chapelle - 13th century Gothic palace chapel.
Église de la Madeleine
Place des Vosges - square in the Marais district laid out by Henry IV
Flame of Liberty public co-opted temporary memorial for Diana, Princess of Wales
The Wallace fountains, spread throughout the city.
The Grand Palais - a large glass exhibition hall built for the 1900 Paris Exhibition.

Museums

Louvre - a huge museum housing many works of art, including the Mona Lisa (La Joconde) and the Venus de Milo statue.
Musée d'Orsay - an art museum housed in a converted 19th century railway station, which contains mainly Impressionist works.
Centre Georges Pompidou, also known as Beaubourg - houses the Musée National d'Art Moderne and a cultural center with a large public library. Famous for its external skeleton of service pipes.
Musée Rodin - a large collection of works by France's most famous sculptor
Musée du Montparnasse in the former residence of artist Marie Vassilieff at 21 Avenue du Maine, details the history of the great artistic community of Montparnasse.
Musée Cluny, also known as the Musée National du Moyen-Age, houses a large collection of art and artifacts from the Middle Ages, including the tapestry cycle The Lady and the Unicorn.
Musée Picasso, exhibits nearly 3000 pieces of art by Pablo Picasso as well as art from his own personal collection including works by Cézanne and Matisse.

Historical centres
Montmartre - historic area on the Butte, home to the Basilica of the Sacré Coeur and also famous for the studios and cafés of many great artists.
Champs-Élysées - a 17th-century garden promenade turned Avenue connection between the Concorde and Arc de Triomphe.
Place de la Concorde - at the foot of the Champs-Élysées, built as the "Place Louis XV" site of the infamous guillotine. The Egyptian obleisk it holds today can be considered Paris' "oldest monument".
Place de la Bastille - Former eastern stronghold and gate of Paris.
Montparnasse - historic area on the Left Bank, famous for the its artists studios, music-halls, and café life.
Quartier Latin - Paris' scholastic center from the 12th century, formerly stratching between the Left Bank's place Maubert and the Sorbonne university.