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City guide · France

Paris

A photograph of Paris
Photograph · Yann Caradec from Paris, France · CC BY-SA 2.0

Paris is 105.4 km² holding 2,047,602 people, wrapped in twenty arrondissements that spiral outward from the Louvre. Almost everything a visitor comes for is inside that spiral, and most of it is walkable. The Seine cuts the city in two and everything is described in relation to it. The Right Bank to the north holds the commerce and the great institutions; the Left Bank to the south holds the universities and the bookshops. Between them the Île de la Cité and the Île Saint-Louis are where the city started.

Practical information
Language spoken
French
French is the language of the Republic under Article 2 of the Constitution
Dialling code
+33 1
Paris and the Île-de-France; drop the leading 0 of 01 when calling from abroad
Currency
Euro (€, EUR)
France has used the euro as its official currency since 2002
Emergency number
112
One number across the country; 15 reaches an ambulance directly
Plug type
Type E · 220 V
Round-pin sockets use a projecting earth pin
Tap water
Safe to drink
The health ministry says tap water may be consumed safely unless local authorities issue specific advice

Planning a visit

Suggested stay
4–5 days
Getting around
Métro and on foot
  1. January: seasonal closure recorded
  2. February: seasonal closure recorded
  3. March: seasonal closure recorded
  4. April: recorded as a best month to visit
  5. May: recorded as a best month to visit
  6. June: recorded as a best month to visit
  7. July: no seasonality data recorded
  8. August: no seasonality data recorded — this month
  9. September: recorded as a best month to visit
  10. October: recorded as a best month to visit
  11. November: seasonal closure recorded
  12. December: seasonal closure recorded

Top things to see

Ranked by importance — sitelinks, pageviews and heritage status, not editor preference.

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Category

Historic monuments 1696 Museums 147 Places of worship 479 Nature sites 0 Viewpoints 0 Food and drink 1 Markets and shopping 1 Entertainment 0 Nightlife 0 Family attractions 0 Art and culture 0 Activities 0

Typical visit duration

Up to 1 hour 1684 1 to 2 hours 10 Half a day or more 2

Interests

History 1696 Art 0 Museums 0 Nature 0 Sea and beach 0 Viewpoints 0
  1. Eiffel Tower
    01 2 hours

    Eiffel Tower

    The Eiffel Tower was built to stand for twenty years and be taken down.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  2. Notre-Dame de Paris
    02 1 hour

    Notre-Dame de Paris

    Operator-confirmed hours and prices for Notre-Dame de Paris are Not recorded pending review. Treat the what it is details as provisional when arranging this stop in Paris.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  3. Père Lachaise Cemetery
    03 1 hr 30 min

    Père Lachaise Cemetery

    Père Lachaise is a working cemetery that became a destination because its managers marketed it.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 20e Arrondissement
  4. Arc de Triomphe
    04 1 hour

    Arc de Triomphe

    Operator-confirmed hours and prices for Arc de Triomphe are Not recorded pending review. Treat the what it is details as provisional when arranging this stop in Paris.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  5. Sacré-Cœur
    05 45 min

    Sacré-Cœur

    Sacré-Cœur was built as an apology. After France lost the war of 1870, Bishop Felix Fournier proposed a church as an act of national penitence, reading the defeat as divine punishment for the country's moral decline since the Revolution.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 18e Arrondissement
  6. Palais Garnier
    06 1 hr 30 min

    Palais Garnier

    The Palais Garnier is what Napoleon III's Paris looked like when it stopped pretending to be restrained. He commissioned it in 1861, Charles Garnier won the competition, and it was built from 1861 to 1875, opening on 5 January 1875.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 9e Arrondissement
  7. Sainte Chapelle
    07 45 min

    Sainte Chapelle

    Sainte-Chapelle is a reliquary the size of a building, and the relic cost more than three times what the building did.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  8. avenue des Champs-Élysées
    08 45 min

    avenue des Champs-Élysées

    The Champs-Élysées is 1.91 km long, 70 m wide, and it is a garden path that became a shopping street.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  9. Bastille
    09 20 min

    Bastille

    The Bastille is a square where a prison used to be, and the prison held seven people on the day it was stormed.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  10. Montparnasse Tower
    10 1 hour

    Montparnasse Tower

    Montparnasse Tower is a 210 m office block finished in 1973, and the reaction to it is the reason Paris has not built another skyscraper in its centre since.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 15e Arrondissement
  11. Champ de Mars
    11 45 min

    Champ de Mars

    The Champ de Mars is a parade ground that became a lawn, and the Eiffel Tower stands at one end of it.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  12. National Assembly
    12 1 hr 30 min

    National Assembly

    The Palais Bourbon is where the National Assembly, the lower house of the French parliament, has sat since the Revolution turned a princess's private mansion into the seat of the republic's elected chamber.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  13. Panthéon
    13 1 hour

    Panthéon

    The Panthéon was built as a church and finished just in time to stop being one.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 5e Arrondissement
  14. Élysée Palace
    14 1 hr 30 min

    Élysée Palace

    The Élysée Palace is where the President of France lives and works, and it is closed to visitors for all but one weekend a year.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  15. Les Invalides
    15 2 hr 30 min

    Les Invalides

    Les Invalides was built to house disabled soldiers and ended up housing Napoleon. Louis XIV ordered it on 24 November 1670; Libéral Bruant and Jules Hardouin-Mansart designed it, and it was completed in 1706.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  16. place de la Concorde
    16 20 min

    place de la Concorde

    The Place de la Concorde is a 7.6-hectare traffic island that was once the busiest execution ground in Europe. It is the largest public square in Paris.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  17. Grand Mosque of Paris
    17 45 min

    Grand Mosque of Paris

    The Grand Mosque of Paris opened in 1926 as France's thanks to its Muslim soldiers, and it remains the city's central mosque a century later.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 5e Arrondissement
  18. Luxembourg Palace
    18 20 min

    Luxembourg Palace

    The Luxembourg Palace is the French Senate, and it was built because a widowed queen was homesick for Florence.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 6e Arrondissement
  19. Jardin du Luxembourg
    19 1 hour

    Jardin du Luxembourg

    The Jardin du Luxembourg is a 23-hectare formal garden on the Left Bank, laid out from 1612 for a queen who wanted a Florentine garden in Paris and built by the French Senate, which still owns the palace at its…

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 6e Arrondissement
  20. Louvre Pyramid
    20 20 min

    Louvre Pyramid

    The Louvre Pyramid is the glass entrance structure built in the museum's main courtyard in the 1980s, and it is a part of the Louvre — its main entrance and one of the more argued-over additions to central Paris …

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  21. Palais-Royal
    21 45 min

    Palais-Royal

    The Palais-Royal was a cardinal's house that became Europe's first shopping centre and then the place the Revolution started.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  22. University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne
    22 1 hour

    University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne

    Behind the gate at Place de la Sorbonne sits a university with a name older than most nations: Robert de Sorbon founded a theology college here in 1257 under the patronage of Louis IX, and the word "Sorbonne" has meant…

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 5e Arrondissement
  23. La Madeleine
    23 30 min

    La Madeleine

    La Madeleine is a Greek temple in the middle of Paris, and it took seventy-nine years and several changes of mind to finish.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  24. place Vendôme
    24 20 min

    place Vendôme

    Place Vendôme is an octagon of uniform stone façades built as a single architectural composition, not a collection of separate buildings that happened to end up on the same square.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  25. Pont Neuf
    25 20 min

    Pont Neuf

    The Pont Neuf is the New Bridge and it is the oldest standing bridge in Paris, which has been the joke about it for four hundred years.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  26. Louvre Palace
    26 3 hours

    Louvre Palace

    The Louvre Palace is the building itself: the fortress-turned-royal-residence that the Musee du Louvre now occupies.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  27. Château de Vincennes
    27 1 hr 30 min

    Château de Vincennes

    Château de Vincennes is a medieval fortress with the tallest surviving keep of any in Europe, built to keep a king safe rather than to look like a palace.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 12e Arrondissement
  28. Bateau Mouche
    28 1 hr 15 min

    Bateau Mouche

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  30. Battle of Paris
    30 10 min

    Battle of Paris

    This point marks ground fought over during the Battle of Paris of 30-31 March 1814, the engagement that ended the War of the Sixth Coalition on French soil and forced Napoleon's abdication weeks later.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 18e Arrondissement
  31. Communards' Wall
    31 45 min

    Communards' Wall

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 20e Arrondissement
  32. Porte Saint-Martin
    32 15 min

    Porte Saint-Martin

    Porte Saint-Martin is a triumphal arch built in 1674 at the order of Louis XIV to celebrate his military victories on the Rhine and in Franche-Comte, standing at what was then a gate in the walls of Paris built under…

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 10e Arrondissement
  33. Saint-Roch
    33 25 min

    Saint-Roch

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  34. Hôtel de la Marine
    34 2 hours

    Hôtel de la Marine

    Hôtel de la Marine is a paid-ticket monument on Place de la Concorde, one of a matching pair of colonnaded palaces — its twin across the square today houses the Hôtel de Crillon — built between 1758 and 1774 to…

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  35. Hôtel de Sens
    35 45 min

    Hôtel de Sens

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  36. Hôtel de Soubise
    36 45 min

    Hôtel de Soubise

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 3e Arrondissement
  37. Hôtel Lambert
    37 45 min

    Hôtel Lambert

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  38. Le Lido
    38 45 min

    Le Lido

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  41. Hôtel de Ville
    41 1 hour

    Hôtel de Ville

    The Hôtel de Ville is Paris's city hall, seat of the mayor and the city council, on the square that carries its name.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  42. Medici Fountain
    42 45 min

    Medici Fountain

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 6e Arrondissement
  43. rue des Rosiers
    43 45 min

    rue des Rosiers

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  44. Au Lapin Agile
    44 45 min

    Au Lapin Agile

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 18e Arrondissement
  47. Villa La Roche
    47 45 min

    Villa La Roche

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  48. Tomb of Napoleon
    48 45 min

    Tomb of Napoleon

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  53. Thermes de Cluny
    53 45 min

    Thermes de Cluny

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 5e Arrondissement
  54. Hôtel Beauharnais
    54 45 min

    Hôtel Beauharnais

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  55. Hôtel Biron
    55 45 min

    Hôtel Biron

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  56. Hôtel de Lauzun
    56 45 min

    Hôtel de Lauzun

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  57. jardin Atlantique
    57 45 min

    jardin Atlantique

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 15e Arrondissement
  58. Oscar Wilde's tomb
    58 45 min

    Oscar Wilde's tomb

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 20e Arrondissement
  59. Port-Royal Abbey
    59 45 min

    Port-Royal Abbey

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 14e Arrondissement
  62. fontaine du Fellah
    62 45 min

    fontaine du Fellah

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  63. Hôtel d'Aumont
    63 45 min

    Hôtel d'Aumont

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  65. Hôtel de Marigny
    65 45 min

    Hôtel de Marigny

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  68. Medicis column
    68 45 min

    Medicis column

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  69. Villa Jeanneret
    69 45 min

    Villa Jeanneret

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  73. fontaine Molière
    73 45 min

    fontaine Molière

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  75. Hotel Gaillard
    75 45 min

    Hotel Gaillard

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 17e Arrondissement
  76. Maison Planeix
    76 45 min

    Maison Planeix

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 13e Arrondissement
  78. Hôtel de Lassay
    78 45 min

    Hôtel de Lassay

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  79. Au gagne petit
    79 45 min

    Au gagne petit

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  84. square Louis-XIII
    84 45 min

    square Louis-XIII

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  85. Lavatory Madeleine
    85 45 min

    Lavatory Madeleine

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  88. Hôtel de Rohan
    88 45 min

    Hôtel de Rohan

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 3e Arrondissement
  89. Hôtel d'Espinoy
    89 45 min

    Hôtel d'Espinoy

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 3e Arrondissement
  90. Hôtel de Vitry
    90 45 min

    Hôtel de Vitry

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 3e Arrondissement
  91. Hôtel Fieubet
    91 45 min

    Hôtel Fieubet

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  93. Palais Cambon
    93 45 min

    Palais Cambon

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  94. Salle Richelieu
    94 45 min

    Salle Richelieu

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  95. Chapelle expiatoire
    95 30 min

    Chapelle expiatoire

    The Chapelle expiatoire is a neoclassical funerary chapel built between 1815 and 1826 on the site of the former Madeleine cemetery, where the guillotined bodies of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were buried in unmarked graves covered with quicklime in…

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  96. Hôtel d'Avaray
    96 45 min

    Hôtel d'Avaray

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement

Source: OpenStreetMap contributors, Wikidata ·

Where to base yourself

District boundaries come from OSM administrative relations, so a district page holds exactly the places inside it — plus, for the islands and the coast, the nearest district by proximity.

How the city is laid out

The arrondissements spiral clockwise from the centre: the 1st sits at the Louvre and the Île de la Cité, and the numbers wind outward to the 20th. Learning that shape is the single most useful thing a first-time visitor can do, because every address in the city carries its arrondissement and the number tells you roughly where you are.

The Right Bank — north of the Seine — is the 1st through 4th at the centre, then the grand avenues of the 8th and 16th to the west and Montmartre in the 18th to the north. The Louvre, the Champs-Élysées, the Opéra and Sacré-Cœur are all Right Bank.

The Left Bank — south — is the 5th, 6th and 7th: the Latin Quarter, Saint-Germain, the Panthéon, the Musée d'Orsay and the Eiffel Tower. It is the older-feeling half and the one with the bookshops.

The Périphérique, completed in 1973, rings the whole of it. Inside is Paris; outside is the metropolitan area of 13,320,752 people across 18,940.7 km², which is a different thing.

Checked 2026-08-23

Getting around

The Métro, and then walking. Paris is small enough that the two together cover everything.

The Métro opened on 19 July 1900 during the World's Fair and now runs 16 lines — numbered 1 to 14 plus 3bis and 7bis — across 321 stations, 61 of which are interchanges. Stations sit 548 m apart on average, which is why a Métro journey of two stops is usually a walk. It carries 1.523 billion passengers a year, 4.17 million a day.

The RER extends further out into the suburbs and is what takes you to the airports and to Versailles. Châtelet–Les Halles, where five Métro lines meet three RER lines, is the largest interchange and the one to avoid at rush hour.

Single tickets and multi-use passes are both sold, and the Navigo Easy card is the contactless option.

Checked 2026-08-23

Common questions

How many days does Paris need?

Four to five. Three days covers the central monuments — the Louvre, Notre-Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Élysées — at a pace that is not punishing. A fourth adds a proper museum day, and a fifth adds Montmartre or a day out at Versailles.

How do the arrondissements work?

They spiral clockwise from the centre. The 1st is at the Louvre and the Île de la Cité and the numbers wind outward to the 20th. Every Paris address carries its arrondissement, so the number tells you roughly where something is.

What is the difference between the Right Bank and the Left Bank?

The Seine. The Right Bank to the north holds the commerce and the great institutions — the Louvre, the Champs-Élysées, the Opéra, Montmartre. The Left Bank to the south holds the universities, the Latin Quarter, the Panthéon, the Musée d'Orsay and the Eiffel Tower.

Is the Métro the best way around?

For anything over a kilometre, yes. It opened on 19 July 1900 and runs 16 lines across 321 stations, with stations 548 m apart on average — which means a two-stop journey is usually faster on foot.

When is the best time to come?

April to June and September to October. August is when Parisians leave and tourists arrive, which is the worst of both — shuttered restaurants and full museums.

How big is Paris really?

The city proper is 105.4 km² with 2,047,602 people, ringed by the Périphérique completed in 1973. The metropolitan area outside it holds 13,320,752 people across 18,940.7 km².

Turn this list into a plan

Set your days, your pace and the hours you actually want to be out. The planner works around closing days and travel time, and leaves room to eat.

Plan Paris