Disneyland Paris is a holiday and recreation resort in Marne-la-Vallée, a new town in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. The complex is located 32 km (20 mi) from the centre of Paris and lies for the most part within the commune of Chessy, Seine-et-Marne.^[1]

Disneyland Paris is composed of two theme parks, a retail, dining and entertainment district, and seven Disney-owned hotels. Operating since 12 April 1992, it was the second Disney resort to open outside the United States (following Tokyo Disney Resort) and the first to be owned and operated by Disney.

Disneyland Paris is operated by French company Euro Disney S.C.A., a public company of which 39.78 percent of its stock is held by The Walt Disney Company, 10 percent by the Saudi Prince Alwaleed and 50.22 percent by other shareholders. The senior leader at the resort is chairman and CEO Philippe Gas.

The complex was a subject of controversy during the periods of negotiation and construction in the late 1980s and early '90s, when a number of prominent French figures voiced their opposition and protests were held by French labour unions and others. A further setback followed the opening of the resort as park attendance, hotel occupancy and revenues fell below projections. The complex was renamed from Euro Disney Resort to Disneyland Paris in 1994. In July 1995, the company saw its first quarterly profit.

A second theme park, Walt Disney Studios Park, opened to the public 16 March 2002.

With 15,405,000 combined visitors to the resort's Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios Park in the fiscal year of 2009, it is France's and Europe's most visited themed attraction.^[2]

Background and development[link]

Following the success of Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, plans to build a similar theme park in Europe emerged in 1972. Upon the leadership of E. Cardon Walker, Tokyo Disneyland opened in 1983 in Japan with instant success, forming a catalyst for international expansion. In late 1984 the heads of Disney's theme park division, Dick Nunis and Jim Cora, presented a list of approximately 1,200 possible European locations for the park.^[3]

By March 1985, the number of possible locations for the park had been reduced to four; two in France and two in Spain.^[4] Both of these nations saw the potential economic advantages of a Disney theme park and competed by offering financing deals to Disney.^[5]

Both Spanish sites were located near the Mediterranean Sea and offered a subtropical climate similar to Disney's parks in California and Florida. Disney had also shown interest in a site near Toulon in southern France, not far from Marseille. The pleasing landscape of that region, as well as its climate, made the location a top competitor for what would be called Euro Disneyland. However, shallow bedrock was encountered beneath the site, which would render construction too difficult. Finally, a site in the rural town of Marne-la-Vallée was chosen because of its proximity to Paris and its central location in Western Europe. This location was estimated to be no more than a four-hour drive for 68 million people and no more than a two-hour flight for a further 300 million.

Michael Eisner, Disney's CEO at the time, signed the first letter of agreement with the French government for the 20-square-kilometre (4,940-acre) site on 18 December 1985, and the first financial contracts were drawn up during the following spring. The final contract was signed by the leaders of the Walt Disney Company and the French government and territorial collectivities on 24 March 1987. Construction began in August 1988, and in December 1990, an information centre named "Espace Euro Disney" was opened to show the public what was being constructed. Plans for a theme park next to Euro Disneyland based on the entertainment industry, Disney-MGM Studios Europe, quickly went into development, scheduled to open in 1996 with a construction budget of US$2.3 billion.^[6] The construction manager was Bovis.^[7]

Hotels, recreation and restaurants[link]

In order to control a maximum of the hotel business, it was decided that 5,200 Disney-owned hotel rooms would be built within the complex. In March 1988, Disney and a council of architects (Frank Gehry, Michael Graves, Robert A.M. Stern, Stanley Tigerman and Robert Venturi) decided on an exclusively American theme in which each hotel would depict a region of the United States. At the time of the opening in April 1992, seven hotels collectively housing 5,800^[8] rooms had been built.

By the year 2017, Euro Disney, under the terms specified in its contract with the French government, will be required to finish constructing a total of 18,200 hotel rooms at varying distances from the resort.^[9] An entertainment, shopping and dining complex based on Walt Disney World's Downtown Disney was designed by Frank Gehry.

With its towers of oxidised silver and bronze-coloured stainless steel under a canopy of lights, it opened as Festival Disney.^[10]

For a projected daily attendance of 55,000, Euro Disney planned to serve an estimated 14,000 people per hour inside the Euro Disneyland park. In order to accomplish this, 29 restaurants were built inside the park (with a further 11 restaurants built at the Euro Disney resort hotels and five at Festival Disney). Menus and prices were varied with an American flavour predominant and Disney's precedent of not serving alcoholic beverages was continued in the park.

2,300 patio seats (30% of park seating) were installed to satisfy Europeans' expected preference of eating outdoors in good weather. In test kitchens at Walt Disney World, recipes were adapted for European tastes. Walter Meyer, executive chef for menu development at Euro Disney and executive chef of food projects development at Walt Disney World noted, "A few things we did need to change, but most of the time people kept telling us, 'Do your own thing. Do what’s American'."^[11]

Recruitment[link]

Unlike Disney's American theme parks, Euro Disney aimed for permanent employees (an estimated requirement of 12,000 for the theme park itself), as opposed to seasonal and temporary part-time employees. Casting centres were set up in Paris, London, Amsterdam. However, it was understood by the French government and Disney that "a concentrated effort would be made to tap into the local French labour market".^[5] Disney sought workers with sufficient communication skills, who spoke two European languages (French and one other), and were socially outgoing. Following precedent, Euro Disney set up its own Disney University to train workers. 24,000 people had applied by November 1991.^[5]

Controversies[link]

The prospect of a Disney park in France was a subject of debate and controversy. Critics, who included prominent French intellectuals, denounced what they considered to be the cultural imperialism, or ‘neoprovincialism’ of Euro Disney and felt it would encourage in France an unhealthy American type of consumerism. For others, Euro Disney became a symbol of America within France. On 28 June 1992 a group of French farmers blockaded Euro Disney in protest of farm policies the United States supported at the time.

A journalist in the centre right French newspaper Le Figaro wrote, “I wish with all my heart that the rebels would set fire to [Euro] Disneyland."^[12] Ariane Mnouchkine, a Parisian stage director, named the concept a “cultural Chernobyl;”^[13] a phrase which would be echoed in the media and grow synonymous with Euro Disney's initial years.

In response, French philosopher Michel Serres noted, "It is not America that is invading us. It is we who adore it, who adopt its fashions and above all, its words." Euro Disney S.C.A.'s then-chairman Robert Fitzpatrick responded, "We didn’t come in and say O.K., we’re going to put a beret and a baguette on Mickey Mouse. We are who we are."^[5] It also came to light that Walt Disney’s surname originates from a village in Normandy called Isigny-sur-Mer. Originally d’Isigny ("of Isigny"), it was later Anglicised into Disney.

Topics of controversy further included Disney's American managers requiring English to be spoken at all meetings and Disney's appearance code for members of staff, which listed regulations and limitations for the use of makeup, facial hair, tattoos, jewellery and more.

French labour unions mounted protests against the appearance code, which they saw as “an attack on individual liberty.” Others criticised Disney as being insensitive to French culture, individualism, and privacy, because restrictions on individual or collective liberties were illegal under French law, unless it could be demonstrated that the restrictions are requisite to the job and do not exceed what is necessary.

Disney countered by saying that a ruling that barred them from imposing such an employment standard could threaten the image and long-term success of the park. "For us, the appearance code has a great effect from a product identification standpoint," said Thor Degelmann, Euro Disney’s personnel director. "Without it we couldn't be presenting the Disney product that people would be expecting."^[14]

Opening day[link]

On 12 April 1992, Euro Disney Resort and its theme park, Euro Disneyland, officially opened. Visitors were warned of chaos on the roads and a government survey indicated that half a million people carried by 90,000 cars might attempt to enter the complex. French radio warned traffic to avoid the area. By midday, the car park was approximately half full, suggesting an attendance level below 25,000. Speculative explanations ranged from people heeding the advice to stay away to the one-day strike that cut the direct RER railway connection to Euro Disney from the centre of Paris.^[12]

Financial, attendance and employment status[link]

In May 1992, entertainment magazine The Hollywood Reporter reported that about 25% of Euro Disney's workforce — approximately 3,000 people — had resigned their jobs because of unacceptable working conditions. It also reported that the park's attendance was far behind expectations. However, the disappointing attendance can be at least partly explained by the recession and increased unemployment which was affecting France and indeed most of the rest of the developed world at this time; when construction of the resort began, the economy was still on an upswing.^[15]

Euro Disney S.C.A. responded in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, in which Robert Fitzpatrick claimed only 1,000 people had left their jobs. In response to the financial situation, Fitzpatrick ordered that the Disney-MGM Studios Europe project would be put on hiatus until a further decision could be made. Prices at the hotels were reduced.

Despite these efforts, in May 1992, daily park attendance was around 25,000 (some reports give a figure of 30,000) instead of the predicted 60,000. The Euro Disney Company stock price spiralled downwards and on 23 July 1992, Euro Disney announced an expected net loss in its first year of operation of approximately 300 million French francs. During Euro Disney's first winter, hotel occupancy was such that it was decided to close the Newport Bay Club hotel during the season.

Initial hopes were that each visitor would spend around US$33 per day, but near the end of 1992, analysts reckoned spending to be around 12% lower.^[16] Efforts to improve attendance included serving alcoholic beverages with meals inside the Euro Disneyland park, in response to a presumed European demand, which began 12 June 1993.^[17]

In January 1994, Sanford Litvack, an attorney from New York City and former U.S. Assistant Attorney General, was assigned to be Disney's lead negotiator regarding Euro Disney's future. On 28 February Litvack made an offer (without the consent of Eisner or Frank Wells)^{[citation needed]} to split the debts between Euro Disney's creditors and Disney. After the banks showed interest, Litvack informed Eisner and Wells.^{[citation needed]} On 14 March, the day before the annual shareholders meeting, the banks capitulated to Disney's demands.

The creditor banks bought US$500 million worth of Euro Disney shares, forgave 18 months of interest and deferred interest payments for three years. Disney invested US$750 million into Euro Disney and granted a five-year suspension of royalty payments. In June that same year, Saudi Arabian Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud cut a deal whereby the Walt Disney Company bought 51% of a new US$1.1 billion share issue, the rest being offered to existing shareholders at below-market rates, with the Prince buying any that were not taken up by existing shareholders (up to a 24.5% holding).

1995 turnaround[link]

On 31 May 1995, a new attraction opened at the theme park. Space Mountain: De la Terre à la Lune had been planned since the inception of Euro Disneyland under the name Discovery Mountain, but was reserved for a revival of public interest. With a redesign of the attraction (which had premiered as Space Mountain at the Walt Disney World Resort's Magic Kingdom in 1975) including a "cannon launch" system, inversions, and an on-ride soundtrack, the US$100 million attraction was dedicated in a ceremony attended by celebrities such as Elton John, Claudia Schiffer and Buzz Aldrin.

On 25 July 1995, Euro Disney S.C.A. reported its first ever quarterly profit of US$35.3 million. On 15 November, the results for the fiscal year ending 30 September were released; in one year the theme park's attendance had climbed from 8.8 million to 10.7 million — an increase of 21%. Hotel occupancy had also climbed from 60 to 68.5%. After debt payments, Disneyland Paris ended the year with a net profit of US$22.8 million.

2000 onwards[link]

In 2002, Euro Disney S.C.A. and The Walt Disney Company announced another annual profit for Disneyland Paris. However, it then incurred a net loss in the three years following. In 2005, The Walt Disney Company agreed to write off all debt to The Walt Disney Company made by Euro Disney S.C.A.. As of 2007^[update] the park was approximately US$2 billion in debt. In August 2008, Disneyland Paris was the most visited attraction in Europe, receiving more visitors than the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower combined.^[18]

Name changes[link]

Disneyland Paris and its assets have been subject to a number of name changes, initially an effort to overcome the negative publicity that followed the inception of Euro Disney.

Michael Eisner noted,

¹until May 1994
²June 1994 until September
³October 1994 until February 2002
⁴March 2002
⁵April 2009

The complex[link]

Disneyland Paris encompasses 4,800 acres (19 km²)^[20] and contains 2 theme parks, 7 resort hotels, 6 associated hotels, a golf course, railway station and a new town: Val d'Europe.

Theme parks[link]

Disneyland Park is based on a formula pioneered by Disneyland in California and further employed at Magic Kingdom Park in Florida and Tokyo Disneyland in Japan. Occupying 566,560 m² (140 acres), it is the largest Disney park based on the original in California.

On March 16, 2002, the Walt Disney Studios Park opened its doors to the public. At 270,000 square metres, it is a continuation on an earlier, never realised concept: the Disney-MGM Studios Europe.

In May 2010, the TEA (Themed Entertainment Association) published its annual report on attendance figures for 2009. It stated:

• Disneyland Park: 12,740,000 visits (No. 4 worldwide);
• Walt Disney Studios Park: 2,665,000 visits.

Other recreation[link]

The Disney Village entertainment district contains a variety of restaurants, bars, shops, Mickey's Friends and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Dinner Show, and other venues and stays open after the parks close.

Golf Disneyland features 9-hole and 18-hole courses.

Hotels[link]

Disneyland Hotel

The complex features seven Disneyland Paris hotels. The Disneyland Hotel is located over the entrance of the Disneyland Park and is marketed as the most prestigious hotel on property. A body of water known as Lake Disney is surrounded by Disney's Hotel New York, Disney's Newport Bay Club and Disney's Sequoia Lodge. Disney's Hotel Cheyenne and Disney's Hotel Santa Fe are located near Lake Disney, Disney's Davy Crockett Ranch is located in a woodland area outside the resort perimeter.

Disneyland Paris includes six Associated Hotels which are not managed by Euro Disney S.C.A. but provide free shuttle buses to the parks: Marriott's Village d'lle-de-France, Radisson BLU Hotel, Vienna International Magic Circus Hotel (formerly known as Holiday Inn Magic Circus Hotel), Vienna International Dream Castle Hotel, MyTravel's Explorers Hotel and a Kyriad Hotel.

Transport[link]

A railway station, Marne-la-Vallée - Chessy, is located between the theme parks and Disney Village. It opened on 1 April 1992 with a connection to the suburban RER network, line A. A connection to the TGV high-speed rail network opened on 29 May 1994 with the Interconnexion Est line. Thalys no longer operates from the station, but there are daily services from London St Pancras on the Eurostar. On 10 June 2007, a new high-speed line, LGV Est, began service between Paris Gare de l'Est and Strasbourg. Free shuttle buses provide transport to all Disney hotels (except Disney's Davy Crockett Ranch) and Associated Hotels. The yellow shuttle buses go to the main Disney hotels while the pink shuttle buses go to the other hotels further away but still in the Disneyland area.

Backstage Disney[link]

Disneyland Paris has very strict rules on the 'hiding' of behind the scenes Disney. Photography and filming is strictly forbidden in backstage areas. The edges of the parks are lined with ride buildings and foliage to hide areas that are not for the public to see. Numerous gates allow entrance into the park for cast members, parade cars etc. When gates around the park are open, anything that can be seen through them is considered part of the Disney magic. Therefore from the second the gates are open, all of the crew must be in character and in place to 'perform'. As the complex is so big, shuttle buses take cast members to different parts of the park via roads behind the parks.

Incidents[link]

Two deaths, several injuries, and one scandal has occurred inside the park. Employees have been involved in two of the events.

See also[link]

• Euro Disney S.C.A.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Disneyland Paris

• Disneyland París (página oficial)
• Disneyland Paris (official site)
• Disneyland Resort Paris travel guide from Wikitravel
• Euro Disney S.C.A., operating company of Disneyland Paris (official site)
• Official "Video of the Resort"
• Official Blog of the 15th Anniversary of Disneyland Paris
• The only podcast dedicated to Disneyland Paris
• Videos of the 2012 Dream Magic Laser Show can be seen on YouTube, e.g. on the StuartMorris7 video channel.

Coordinates: 48°52′7.39″N 2°46′54.48″E / 48.8687194°N 2.7818°E / 48.8687194; 2.7818

Paris
Motto: Fluctuat nec mergitur (Latin: "It is tossed by the waves, but does not sink")
Paris, with the Eiffel Tower in the foreground and the skyscrapers of La Défense in the background
City flag	City coat of arms
Paris
Location within Île-de-France region  Paris
Administration
Country	France
Region	Île-de-France
Department	Paris
Mayor	Bertrand Delanoë (PS) (2008–2014)
Statistics
Land area1 [1]	105.4 km2 (40.7 sq mi)
Population2	2,211,297  (Jan. 2008[2])
- Ranking	1st in France
- Density	20,980 /km2 (54,300 /sq mi)
Urban area	2,845 km2 (1,098 sq mi) (2010)
- Population	10,354,675[3] (Jan. 2008)
Metro area	17,175 km2 (6,631 sq mi) (2010)
- Population	12,089,098[4] (Jan. 2008)
Time zone	CET (UTC +1)
INSEE/Postal code	75056/ 75001-75020, 75116
Website	www.paris.fr
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
2 Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

Coordinates: 48°51′24″N 2°21′03″E / 48.8567°N 2.3508°E / 48.8567; 2.3508

Paris (ⁱ/ˈpærɨs/; French: [paʁi] ( listen)) is the capital and largest city of France. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region (or Paris Region, French: Région parisienne). As of January 2008 the city of Paris, within its administrative limits (the 20 arrondissements) largely unchanged since 1860, has an estimated population of 2,211,297^[2] and a metropolitan population of 12,089,098^[4], and is one of the most populated metropolitan areas in Europe.^[5] Paris was the largest city in the Western world for about 1,000 years, prior to the 19th century, and the largest in the entire world between the 16th and 19th centuries.^[6][7][8]

Paris is today one of the world's leading business and cultural centres, and its influences in politics, education, entertainment, media, fashion, science, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities.^{[9][10][11][12]} It hosts the headquarters of many international organizations such as UNESCO, the OECD, the International Chamber of Commerce or the European Space Agency. Paris is considered one of the greenest^[13] and most liveable^[14] cities in Europe. It is also one of the most expensive.^[15][16]

Paris and the Paris Region, with €552.1 billion (US$768.9 billion) in 2009, produce more than a quarter of the gross domestic product of France.^[17] According to 2008 estimates, the Paris agglomeration is Europe's biggest^[18] or second biggest^[19] city economy and the sixth largest in the world.^[20] The Paris region is the first in Europe in terms of research and development capability and expenditure^[21] and through its 17 universities and 55 grandes écoles has the highest concentration of higher education students in the European Union.^[21] With about 42 million tourists annually in the city and its suburbs,^[21] Paris is the most visited city in the world. The city and its region contain 3,800 historical monuments and four UNESCO World Heritage Sites.^[21]

Etymology[link]

The name Paris derives from that of its earliest inhabitants, the Gaulish tribe known as the Parisii. The city was called Lutetia (more fully, Lutetia Parisiorum, "Lutetia of the Parisii"), during the Roman era of the 1st to the 6th century, but during the reign of Julian the Apostate (360–363), the city was renamed Paris.^[22]

It is believed that the name of the Parisii tribe comes from the Celtic Gallic word parisio meaning "the working people" or "the craftsmen."^[23]

Paris has many nicknames, but its most famous is "La Ville-Lumière" ("The City of Light"),^[24] a name it owes first to its fame as a centre of education and ideas during the Age of Enlightenment, and later to its early adoption of street lighting.^[25] Since the mid-19th century, Paris has been known as Paname^[26] ([panam]) in the Parisian slang called argot ( Moi j'suis d'Paname, i.e. "I'm from Paname"). The singer Renaud repopularized the term amongst the young generation^[26] with his 1976 album Amoureux de Paname ("In love with Paname").

Paris' inhabitants are known in English as "Parisians" and in French as Parisiens ([paʁizjɛ̃] ( listen)). Parisians are often pejoratively called Parigots ([paʁiɡo] ( listen)), a term first used in 1900^[27] by those living outside the Paris region.

See Wiktionary for the name of Paris in various languages other than English and French.

History[link]

The Gallo-Roman baths Thermes de Cluny at the Musée de Cluny, in Paris's Latin Quarter.

Origins[link]

The earliest archaeological signs of permanent settlements in the Paris area date from around 4200 BC.^[28] The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the area near the river Seine from around 250 BC.^[29][30] The Romans conquered the Paris basin in 52 BC,^[28] with a permanent settlement by the end of the same century on the Left Bank Sainte Geneviève Hill and the Île de la Cité. The Gallo-Roman town was originally called Lutetia, or Lutetia Parisorum 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.^[31]  

The collapse of the Roman empire and the 5th-century Germanic invasions sent the city into a period of decline. By AD 400, Lutèce, largely abandoned by its inhabitants, was little more than a garrison town entrenched into a hastily fortified central island.^[28] The city reclaimed its original appellation of "Paris" towards the end of the Roman occupation.

Merovingian and Feudal Eras[link]

The Paris region was under full control of the Germanic Franks by the late 5th century. The Frankish king Clovis the Frank, the first king of the Merovingian dynasty, made the city his capital from 508. The late 8th century Carolingian dynasty displaced the Frankish capital to Aachen; this period coincided with the beginning of Viking invasions that had spread as far as Paris by the early 9th century.

Repeated invasions forced Parisians to build a fortress on the Île de la Cité. One of the most remarkable Viking raids was on 28 March 845, when Paris was sacked and held ransom, probably by Ragnar Lodbrok, who left only after receiving a large bounty paid by the crown. 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, and the end of the Carolingian empire came in 987 when Hugh Capet, count of Paris, was elected king of France. Paris, under the Capetian kings, became a capital once more.

Middle Ages to 19th century[link]

The Château de Vincennes, with its 52 m high keep, was built between the 14th and 17th century.

Paris's population was around 200,000^[32] when the Black Death arrived in 1348, killing as many as 800 people a day; and 40,000 died from the plague in 1466.^[33] During the 16th and 17th centuries, plague visited the city for almost one year out of three.^[34] Paris lost its position as seat of the French realm during the occupation by the English-allied Burgundians during the Hundred Years' War, but regained its title when Charles VII of France reclaimed the city from English rule in 1436. Paris from then on became France's capital once again in title, but France's real centre of power would remain in the Loire Valley^[35] until King Francis I returned France's crown residences to Paris in 1528.

During the French Wars of Religion, Paris was a stronghold of the Catholic party. In August 1572, under the reign of Charles IX, while many noble Protestants were in Paris on the occasion of the marriage of Henry of Navarre – the future Henry IV – to Margaret of Valois, sister of Charles IX, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre occurred; begun on 24 August, it lasted several days and spread throughout the country.^[36][37]

In 1590 Henry IV unsuccessfully laid siege to the city in the Siege of Paris. 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, a lavish estate on the outskirts of Paris, in 1682. A century later, Paris was the centre stage for the French Revolution, with the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 and the overthrow of the monarchy in September 1792.^[38]

19th century[link]

Drilling of numerous streets under the Second Empire and the Third Republic.

Paris was occupied by Russian and Allied armies upon Napoleon's defeat on the 31 March 1814; this was the first time in 400 years that the city had been conquered by a foreign power.^[39] The ensuing Restoration period, or the return of the monarchy under Louis XVIII (1814–1824) and Charles X, ended with the July Revolution Parisian uprising of 1830. The new 'constitutional monarchy' under Louis-Philippe ended with the 1848 "February Revolution" that led to the creation of the Second Republic.

Throughout these events, cholera epidemics in 1832 and 1849 ravaged the population of Paris; the 1832 epidemic alone claimed 20,000 of the population of 650,000.^[40]

The greatest development in Paris's history began with the Industrial Revolution creation of a network of railways that brought an unprecedented flow of migrants to the capital from the 1840s. The city's largest transformation came with the 1852 Second Empire under Napoleon III; his préfet, Baron Haussmann, levelled entire districts of Paris' narrow, winding medieval streets to create the network of wide avenues and neo-classical façades that still make up much of modern Paris; the reason for this transformation was twofold, as not only did the creation of wide boulevards beautify and sanitize the capital, it also facilitated the effectiveness of troops and artillery against any further uprisings and barricades for which Paris was so famous.^[41]

The 1889 Universal Exposition.

The Second Empire ended in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), and a besieged Paris under heavy bombardment surrendered on 28 January 1871. The discontent of Paris' populace with the new armistice-signing government seated in Versailles resulted in the creation of the Paris Commune government, supported by an army created in large part of members of the city's former National Guard who would both continue resistance against the Prussians and oppose the army of the "Versaillais" government. The Paris Commune ended with the Semaine Sanglante ("Bloody Week"), during which roughly 20,000 "Communards" were executed before the fighting ended on 28 May 1871.^[42] The ease with which the Versaillais army overtook Paris owed much to Baron Haussmann's renovations.

France's late 19th-century Universal Expositions made Paris an increasingly important centre of technology, trade, and tourism.^[43] Its most famous were the 1889 Exposition universelle to which Paris owes its "temporary" display of architectural engineering progess, the Eiffel Tower, a structure that remained the world's tallest building until 1930; the 1900 Universal Exposition saw the opening of the first Paris Métro line.

20th century[link]

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.^[44]

The Liberation of Paris, August 1944.

On 14 June 1940, five weeks after the start of the Battle of France, an undefended Paris fell to German occupation forces. The Germans marched past the Arc de Triomphe on the 140th anniversary of Napoleon's victory at the Battle of Marengo.^[45] German forces remained in Paris until the city was liberated in August 1944 after a resistance uprising, two and a half months after the Normandy invasion.^[46] 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). Also, 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.^[47]

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 encircling the city.^[48][49][50]

Since the 1970s, many inner suburbs of Paris (especially the northern and eastern ones) have experienced deindustrialization, and the once-thriving cités have gradually become ghettos for immigrants and oases of unemployment.^[51][52] At the same time, the city of Paris (within its Périphérique expressway) 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.^[53][54][55] The resulting widening social gap between these two areas has led to periodic unrest since the mid-1980s, such as the 2005 riots which were concentrated for the most part in the northeastern suburbs.^[56]

Diana, Princess of Wales, died at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris on 31 August 1997, after a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel.^[57]

21st century[link]

La Défense business district.

In order to alleviate social tensions in the inner suburbs and revitalise the metropolitan economy of Paris, several plans are currently underway. 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, which bring together architects, urban planners, geographers, and landscape architects, will offer their vision for building a Paris metropolis of the 21st century in the Kyoto Protocol era and will 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 global economic image of metropolitan Paris, several skyscrapers (300 m (984 ft) 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. Paris authorities also stated publicly that 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.

The election of Bertrand Delanoë made Paris the world's largest city with an openly LGBT mayor at the time.

Geography[link]

Paris as seen from the Spot Satellite.

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 point is 35 m (115 ft) above sea level. Paris has several prominent hills, of which the highest is Montmartre at 130 m (427 ft).^[58]

Excluding the outlying parks of Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes, Paris covers an oval measuring 86.928 km² (34 sq mi) in area.^{[citation needed]} The city's last major annexation of outlying territories in 1860 not only gave it its modern form but also created the twenty clockwise-spiralling arrondissements (municipal boroughs). From the 1860 area of 78 km² (30 sq mi), the city limits were expanded marginally to 86.9 km² (34 sq mi) 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 105.39 km² (41 sq mi).^[59]

Climate[link]

Air pollution in the vicinity of Paris (France).

Paris has the typical Western European oceanic climate which is affected by the North Atlantic Current. Over a year, Paris' climate can be described as mild and moderately wet.

Summer days are usually warm and pleasant with average temperatures hovering between 15 and 25 °C, and a fair amount of sunshine. Each year, however, there are a few days where the temperature rises above 32 °C (90 °F). Some years have even witnessed some long periods of harsh summer weather, such as the heat wave of 2003 where temperatures exceeded 30 °C (86 °F) for weeks, surged up to 40 °C (104 °F) on some days and seldom cooled down at night. More recently, the average temperature for July 2011 was +17.6 °C, with an average minimum temperature of 12.9 °C and an average maximum temperature of 23.7 °C.^[60]

Spring and autumn have, on average, mild days and fresh nights, but are changing and unstable. Surprisingly warm or cool weather occurs frequently in both seasons.

In winter, sunshine is scarce; days are cold but generally above freezing with temperatures around 7 °C (45 °F). Light night frosts are however quite common, but the temperature will dip below −5 °C (23 °F) for only a few days a year. Snowfall is rare, but the city sometimes sees light snow or flurries with or without accumulation. Recently, notably in 2009, 2010 and 2011, intense cold waves brought repeated heavy snowfalls (15 cm (5.91 in) during one of December 2010's fourteen snowstorms) and temperatures plummeting to −10 °C (14 °F) and −20 °C (−4 °F) in the Paris suburbs.

Rain falls throughout the year, and although Paris is not a very rainy city, it is known for heavy sudden showers. Average annual precipitation is 652 mm (25.7 in) with light rainfall fairly distributed throughout the year. The highest recorded temperature is 40.4 °C (105 °F) on 28 July 1948, and the lowest is a −23.9 °C (−11 °F) on 10 December 1879.^[61]

Cityscape[link]

Panoramic view over the western side of Paris, at dusk, from the top of the Tour Montparnasse.

Panorama of Paris as seen from the Eiffel Tower as full 360-degree view.

Architecture[link]

La rue de la Paix, by Jean Béraud (1900).

Much of contemporary Paris is the result of the vast mid-19th century urban remodelling. For centuries, the city had been a labyrinth of narrow streets and half-timber houses, but, beginning with Haussman's advent, entire quarters were leveled to make way for wide avenues lined with neo-classical stone buildings of bourgeoisie standing. Most of this 'new' Paris is the Paris we see today.

The building code has seen few changes since, and the Second Empire plans are in many cases still followed. The "alignement" law is still in place, which regulates building façades of new constructions according to a pre-defined street width. A building's height is limited according to the width of the streets it borders, and under the regulation, it is difficult to get an approval to build a taller building.

Many of Paris' important institutions are located outside the city limits. The financial (La Défense) business district; the main food wholesale market (Rungis); schools (École Polytechnique; ESSEC; INSEAD; HEC); research laboratories (in Saclay or Évry); the largest stadium (the Stade de France), and the government offices (Ministry of Transportation) are located in the city's suburbs.

Montmartre. Basilique du Sacré-Cœur

The Place de la Concorde.

Galeries Lafayette department store in boulevard Haussmann during Christmas

Districts and historical centres[link]

City of Paris[link]

• Place de la Bastille (4th, 11th and 12th arrondissements, right bank) is a district of great historical significance, for not just Paris, but also all of France. Because of its symbolic value, the square has often been a site of political demonstrations.

• 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 (Hôtel Ritz and Hôtel de Vendôme) and its jewellers. Many famous fashion designers have had their salons located here.

• Champs-Élysées (8th arrondissement, right bank) is a 17th-century garden-promenade-turned-avenue connecting Place de la Concorde and Arc de Triomphe. It is one of the many tourist attractions and a major shopping street of Paris.

• Les Halles (1st arrondissement, right bank) were formerly Paris' central meat and produce market, and, since the late 1970s, are a major shopping centre around an important metro connection station (Châtelet – Les Halles, the biggest in the world). The old Halles were 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 architecturally very well-preserved, and some of the oldest houses and buildings of Paris can be found there. It is a very culturally open place. It is also known for its Chinese, Jewish and gay communities.

• 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.

• Avenue de l'Opéra (9th arrondissement, right bank) is the area around the Opéra Garnier and the location of 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 BNP Paribas and American Express.

• Quartier Latin (5th and 6th arrondissements, left bank) is a 12th-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. Various higher-education establishments, such as Sciences Po Paris, the École Normale Supérieure, Mines ParisTech, and the Jussieu university campus, make it a major educational centre in Paris.

• Faubourg Saint-Honoré (8th arrondissement, right bank) is one of Paris' high-fashion districts, home to labels such as Hermès and Christian Lacroix.

Avenue des Champs-Élysées during Christmas 2008

In the Paris area[link]

• La Défense (straddling the communes of Courbevoie, Puteaux, and Nanterre, 2.5 km (2 mi) west of the city proper) is a key suburb of Paris and 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 high-rises. Initiated by the French government in 1958, the district hosts 3,500,000 m² (37,673,686 sq ft) of offices, making it the largest district in Europe developed specifically for business. The Grande Arche (Great Arch) of la Défense, housing a part of the French Transports Minister's headquarters, ends at the central Esplanade, around which the district is organised.

Val de Seine.

• 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 former derelict manufacturing area that 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 lines 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 southwest 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[link]

Three of the most famous Parisian landmarks are the 12th-century cathedral Notre Dame de Paris on the Île de la Cité, the Napoleonic Arc de Triomphe and the 19th-century Eiffel Tower. 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 farther west to the La Défense business district dominated by a 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 aux 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 Opéra and the Paris Opera Ballet, while the former palace of the Louvre now houses one of the most renowned 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 13th-century Sainte-Chapelle palace chapel and the Église de la Madeleine.

Panorama of Paris which shows some of its landmarks

Parks and gardens[link]

Jardin du Luxembourg.

Two of Paris' oldest and famous gardens are the Tuileries Garden, created in the 16th century for a palace on the banks of the Seine near the Louvre, and the Left bank Luxembourg Garden, another former private garden belonging to a château built for 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 former suburban parks of Montsouris, Parc des Buttes Chaumont, and Parc Monceau (formerly known as the "folie de Chartres") are creations of Napoleon III's engineer Jean-Charles Alphand. 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 laid to the periphery along the traces of its former circular "Petite Ceinture" railway line: Promenade Plantée.

Water and sanitation[link]

A view of the Seine from the Pont Neuf.

Paris in its early history had only the Seine and Bièvre rivers for water. Later forms of irrigation were a 1st-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; also, from 1809, the canal de l'Ourcq, providing Paris with water from less-polluted rivers to the northeast of the capital, and "God's Tears", a bi-annual rainstorm, which stopped in the early 20th century as a natural phenomenon. Paris would have its first constant and plentiful source of drinkable water only from the late 19th century.

Canal Saint-Martin.

From 1857, the civil engineer Eugène Belgrand, under Napoleon III's Préfet Haussmann, oversaw the construction of a series of new aqueducts that brought water 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 on 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 (1,491 mi) of underground passageways^[63] 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.^{[citation needed]}

In 1982, then mayor Jacques Chirac introduced the motorcycle-mounted Motocrotte to remove dog faeces from Paris streets.^[64] The project was abandoned in 2002 for a new and better enforced local law which now fines dog owners up to 500 euros for not removing their dog faeces. It was estimated at the time of their removal, that the fleet of 70 Motocrottes were cleaning up only 20% of dog faeces on Parisian street – at an annual cost of £3million.^[65]

Cemeteries[link]

The Paris Catacombs hold the remains of approximately 6 million people.

Paris' main cemetery was located to its outskirts on its Left Bank from the beginning of its history^{[citation needed]}, 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). Part of this network of tunnels and remains can be visited today on the official tour of the Catacombs. After a tentative creation of several smaller suburban cemeteries, Napoleon Bonaparte provided a more definitive solution in the creation of three massive Parisian cemeteries outside the city tax wall called the Wall of the Farmers-General. 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[link]

Entertainment and performing arts[link]

The Opéra Garnier.

The largest opera houses of Paris 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 two other active and competing opera houses: Opéra-Comique (which still exists to this day) and Théâtre 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, and 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 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. In more recent times, the Le Zénith hall in Paris, La Villette quarter and a "parc-omnisports" stadium in Bercy serve as large-scale rock concert halls.

Dance at the Moulin de la Galette, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1876)

Several yearly festivals take place in Paris, such as Rock en Seine. 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. In 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 beginning in 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, whereas 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.

Cuisine[link]

Café Les Deux Magots in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Paris' culinary reputation has its base in the diverse origins of its inhabitants. In its beginnings, it owed much to the 19th-century organisation of a railway system that had Paris as a centre, making the capital a focal point for immigration from France's many different regions and gastronomical cultures. This reputation continues through today in a cultural diversity that has since spread to a worldwide level thanks to Paris' continued reputation for culinary finesse and further immigration from increasingly distant climes.

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 in 1898, and the Hôtel de Crillon opened its doors on the north side of the Place de la Concorde, starting in 1909.

Tourism[link]

Paris, Banks of the Seine *
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Notre Dame de Paris on the Île de la Cité, on the River Seine
Country	France
Type	Cultural
Criteria	i, ii, iv
Reference	600
Region **	Europe and North America
Inscription history
Inscription	1991 (15th Session)
* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List ** Region as classified by UNESCO

Since 1848, Paris has been a popular destination by rail network, with Paris at its centre. Among Paris' first mass attractions drawing international interest were the above-mentioned Expositions Universelles that were the origin of Paris' many 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 receives around 28 million tourists per year^[66] (42 in the whole Paris Region),^[21] of which 17 million are foreign visitors.^[67] Its 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: 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 million since its construction. Disneyland Paris is a major tourist attraction for visitors to not only Paris but also the rest of Europe, with 14.5 million visitors in 2007.

The Louvre is one of the world's 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, is 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.

Stade de France.

Sports[link]

Paris' most popular sport clubs are the association football club Paris Saint-Germain FC, the basketball team Paris-Levallois Basket, and the rugby union club Stade Français. The 80,000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located in Saint-Denis. It is used for football, rugby union and track and field athletics. It hosts annually French national rugby team's home matches of the Six Nations Championship, French national association football team for friendlies and major tournaments qualifiers, and several important matches of 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 Paris region currently boasts two teams in the top level of French rugby union, Top 14. Currently, the most prominent side is Stade Français, which is also the only one of the two to be based in the city proper. The other Top 14 team in the region is Racing Métro 92, currently based in the western suburb of Colombes. Racing Métro is the successor to Racing Club de France, which contested the first-ever French championship 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 and for the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

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[link]

French Ministry of Finance

With a 2009 GDP of €552.1 billion^[17] (US$768.9 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 seventeenth-largest economy in the world, almost as large as the Dutch economy.^[68] The Paris Region is France's premier centre of economic activity: While its population accounted for 18.8% of the total population of metropolitan France in 2009,^[69] its GDP accounted for 29.5% of metropolitan France's GDP.^[17] Activity in the Paris urban area, though diverse, does not 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 (the largest dedicated business district in Europe.^[70]), 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. While 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 city is considered one of the best cities in the world for innovation.^[71]. The Paris Region hosts the headquarters of 33 of the Fortune Global 500 companies.^[72]

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. In 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.^[73] Unemployment in the Paris "immigrant ghettos" ranges from 20 to 40%, according to varying sources.^[74]

Business district of La Défense

Health[link]