Wednesday, January 15, 2014

paris

Paris (English /ˈpærɪs/Listeni/ˈpɛrɪs/French: [paʁi] ( )) is the capital and most populous city of France. It is situated on the River Seine, in the north of the country, at the heart of the Île-de-France region. Within its administrative limits (the 20 arrondissements), the city had 2,234,105 inhabitants in 2009 while its metropolitan area is one of the largest population centres in Europe with more than 12 million inhabitants.
An important settlement for more than two millennia, by the late 12th century Paris had become a walled cathedral city that was one of Europe's foremost centres of learning and the arts and the largest city in the Western world until the turn of the 18th century. Paris was the focal point for many important political events throughout its history, including theFrench Revolution. Today it is one of the world's leading business and cultural centres, and its influence in politics, education, entertainment, media, science, fashion and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major cities. The city has one of the largest GDPs in the world, €607 billion (US$845 billion) as of 2011, and as a result of its high concentration of national and international political, cultural and scientific institutions is one of the world's leading tourist destinations. The Paris Region hosts the world headquarters of 30 of the Fortune Global 500 companies[6] in several business districts, notably La Défense, the largest dedicated business district in Europe.[7]
Centuries of cultural and political development have brought Paris a variety of museums, theatres, monuments and architectural styles. Many of its masterpieces such as the Louvreand the Arc de Triomphe are iconic buildings, especially its internationally recognized symbol, the Eiffel Tower. Long regarded as an international centre for the arts, works by history's most famous painters can be found in the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay and its many other museums and galleries. Paris is a global hub of fashion and has been referred to as the "international capital of style", noted for its haute couture tailoring, its high-end boutiques, and the twice-yearly Paris Fashion Week. It is world renowned for its haute cuisine, attracting many of the world's leading chefs. Many of France's most prestigious universities and Grandes Écoles are in Paris or its suburbs, and France's major newspapers Le MondeLe FigaroLibération are based in the city, and Le Parisien in Saint-Ouen near Paris.
Paris is home to the association football club Paris Saint-Germain FC 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. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros. Paris played host to the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics, the 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cup, and the 2007 Rugby World Cup. The city is a major rail, highway, and air-transport hub, served by the two international airports Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the city's subway system, the Paris Métro, serves 9 million passengers daily. Paris is the hub of the national road network, and is surrounded by three orbital roads: the Périphérique, the A86 motorway, and the Francilienne motorway in the outer suburbs.

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Toponyms

See Wiktionary for the name of Paris in various languages other than English and French.
The name "Paris" is derived 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 4th century AD, but during the reign of Julian the Apostate (360–3), the city was renamed Paris.[8] It is believed that the name of the Parisii tribe comes from the Celtic Gallic word parisio, meaning "the working people" or "the craftsmen".[9]
Paris has many nicknames, like "The City of Love", but its most famous is "La Ville-Lumière" ("The City of Light"),[10] a name it owes first to its fame as a centre of education and ideas during the Age of Enlightenment. The sobriquet's "light" took on a more literal sense when Paris became one of the first European cities to adopt gas street lighting: thePassage des Panoramas was Paris' first gas-lit throughfare from 1817.[11]
Since the mid-19th century, Paris has been known as Paname ([panam]) in the Parisian slang called argot (Ltspkr.pngMoi j'suis d'Paname, i.e. "I'm from Paname").[12] The singer Renaudrepopularised the term among the younger generation with his 1976 album Amoureux de Paname ("In love with Paname").[13]
Inhabitants are known in English as "Parisians" and in French as Parisiens ([paʁizjɛ̃] ( )) and Parisiennes. Parisians were often pejoratively called Parigots ([paʁiɡo] ( )) and Parigotes, a term first used in 1900 by those living outside the Paris region.[14]

History

The frigidarium of the Gallo-Roman bathsThermes de Cluny

Origins

The earliest archaeological signs of permanent settlements in the Paris area date from around 4500–4200 BC,[15] with some of the oldest evidence of canoe-use by hunter-gatherer peoples being uncovered in Bercy in 1991[16] (The remains of three canoes can be seen at the Carnavalet Museum[17] · [18]). The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the area near the river Seine from around 250 BC,[19][20] building a trading settlement on the island, later the Île de la Cité, the easiest place to cross.[21] The Romans conquered the Paris basin around 52 BC,[15] 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.[22] It expanded greatly over the following centuries, becoming a prosperous city with a forum, palaces, baths, temples, theatres, and an amphitheatre.[23]
The collapse of the Roman empire, along with the Germanic invasions of the 5th-century, sent the city into a period of decline. By 400 AD, Lutèce was largely abandoned by its inhabitants, little more than a garrison town entrenched into a hastily fortified central island.[15] The city reclaimed its original appellation of "Paris" towards the end of the Roman occupation, around 360 AD, when Julian the Apostate, Prefect of the Gauls, was proclaimed emperor.[24] The proclamation was made on the Île de la Cité. Julian remained based there for three years, making Paris the de facto capital of the Western Empire.[25]

Merovingian and Feudal eras

Clovis I, the first king of theMerovingian dynasty
The Paris region was under full control of the Salian 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 and was responsible for converting the city back to Christianity.[26] 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.[26]
One of the most remarkable Viking raids was on 28 March 845, when Paris was invaded by some 200 Norse ships along the Seine and sacked and held ransom,[27] probably byRagnar Lodbrok, who reputedly left only after receiving a large bounty paid by the crown. Repeated invasions forced Eudes, Count of Paris, to build a fortress on the Île de la Cité in 885 AD. However, the city soon suffered a siege lasting almost a year, eventually relieved by the Carolingian king, Charles "The Fat", who instead of attacking allowed the besiegers to sail up the Seine and lay waste to Burgundy.[26] Eudes then took the crown for himself, plunging the French crown into dynastic turmoil lasting over a century until 987 AD whenHugh Capet, count of Paris, was elected king of France. Paris, under the Capetian kings, became a capital once more, and his coronation was seen by many historians as the moment marking the birth of modern France.[26]

Middle Ages to 18th century

The Château de Vincennes, built between the 14th and 17th centuries
Paris became prosperous and by the end of the 11th century, scholars, teachers and monks flocked to the city to engage in intellectual exchanges, to teach and be taught; Philippe-Auguste founded the University of Paris in 1200.[26] The guilds gradually became more powerful and were instrumental in inciting the first revolt after the king was captured by the English in 1356.[28] Paris' population was around 200,000[29] when the Black Death arrived in 1348, killing as many as 800 people a day; 40,000 died from the plague in 1466.[30]During the 16th and 17th centuries, plague visited the city for almost one year out of three.[31] Paris lost its position as seat of the French realm during the occupation by the English-allied Burgundians during the Hundred Years' War, but when Charles VII of France reclaimed the city from English rule in 1436, Paris became France's capital once again in title, although the real centre of power remained in the Loire Valley[32] 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 Henri of Navarre—the future Henri IV—to Margaret of Valois, sister of Charles IX, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre occurred; beginning on 24 August, it lasted several days and spread throughout the country.[33][34]
In 1590 Henri IV unsuccessfully laid siege to the city in the Siege of Paris, but, threatened with usurpation from Philip II of Spain, he converted to Catholicism in 1594, and the city welcomed him as king.[28] The Bourbons, Henri's family, spent vast amounts of money keeping the city under control, building the Ile St-Louis as well as bridges and other infrastructure.[28] But unhappy with their lack of political representation, in 1648 Parisians rose in a rebellion known as the Fronde and the royal family fled the city. Louis XIV later moved the royal court permanently to Versailles, a lavish estate on the outskirts of Paris,[28] in 1682. The following century was an "Age of Enlightenment"; Paris' reputation grew on the writings of its intellectuals such as the philosopher Voltaire and Diderot, the first volume of whose Encyclopédie was published in Paris in 1751.[35]

French Revolution

Left: Storming of the Bastille, by Jean-Pierre Houël (1789); right: Map of Paris and its vicinity c. 1735.
At the end of the century, Paris was the centre stage for the French Revolution; a bad harvest in 1788 caused food prices to rocket and by the following year the sovereign debt had reached an unprecedented level.[36] On 14 July 1789, Parisians, appalled by the king's pressure on the new assembly formed by the Third Estate, took siege of the Bastille fortress, a symbol of absolutism,[37] starting revolution and rejecting the divine right of monarchs in France. Jean-Sylvain Bailly, the first Mayor, was elected on 15 July 1789,[38] and two days later the national tricolour flag with the colours of Paris (blue and red) and of the King (white) was adopted at the Hôtel de Ville by Louis XVI.[39]
The Republic was declared for the first time in 1792. In 1793, Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette were executed on the Place de la Révolution, in Paris, the site of many executions. The guillotine was most active during the "Reign of Terror", in the summer of 1794, when in a single month more than 1,300 people were executed. Following the Terror, the French Directory held control until it was overthrown in a coup d'état by Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon put an end to the revolution and established the French Consulate, and then later was elected by plebiscite[40] as emperor of the First French Empire.[41]

19th century

Paris was occupied by Russian and Allied armies upon Napoleon's defeat on 31 March 1814; this was the first time in 400 years that the city had been conquered by a foreign power.[42] The ensuingRestoration period, or the return of the monarchy under Louis XVIII (1814–24) and Charles X, ended with the July Revolution Parisian uprising of 1830.[43] The new constitutional monarchy under Louis-Philippe ended with the 1848 "February Revolution" that led to the creation of the Second Republic.[44] Cholera epidemics in 1832 and 1850 ravaged the population of Paris: the 1832 epidemic alone claimed 20,000 of the population of 650,000.[45]
The greatest development in Paris' 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 motivation for this transformation was twofold: to create wide boulevards that beautified and sanitised the capital and to increase the effectiveness of troops and artillery against any further uprisings and barricades, for which Paris was so famous.[46]
Drilling (opening/alignment/widening) of numerous streets under the Second Empireand the Third Republic
The Second Empire ended in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), 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. It was supported by an army created in large part of members of the city's former National Guard, which continued to resist the Prussians and opposed the army of the "Versaillais" government.[47] 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.[48] The ease with which the Versaillais army gained control of Paris owed much to Baron Haussmann's renovations.[49]
France's late 19th-century Universal Expositions made Paris an increasingly important centre of technology, trade, and tourism.[50] The most famous were the 1889 Exposition universelle to which Paris owes its "temporary" display of architectural engineering progress,[51] the Eiffel Tower, which remained the world's tallest structure until 1930,[52] and the 1900 Universal Exposition, which saw the opening of the first Paris Métro line.[53]

20th century

During the First World War 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, within earshot of the city.[54] In 1918–19 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, including the exiled Russian composer Stravinsky, Spanish painters Picasso and Dalí, and American writerHemingway.[55]
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.[56] The Germans marched past the Arc de Triomphe on the 140th anniversary of Napoleon's victory at the Battle of Marengo.[57] German forces remained in Paris until the city was liberatedin August 1944 after a resistance uprising, two and a half months after the Normandy invasion.[58] Central Paris emerged from the Second World War practically unscathed, as there were no strategic targets for Allied bombers (railway stations in central Paris are terminal stations; major factories were located in the suburbs), and despite orders to destroy the city and all historic monuments the German commander Dietrich von Choltitz refused, gaining the popular title "Saviour of Paris" for his defiance of the Führer.[59] The historical event is dramatized in the 1966 motion picture Is Paris Burning?.
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 La Défense, the business district. A comprehensive express subway network, the RER, was built to complement the Métro and serve the distant suburbs. A network of roads was developed in the suburbs centred on the Périphériqueexpressway encircling the city, which was completed in 1973.[60]
Since the 1970s, many inner suburbs of Paris (especially those in the north and east) have experienced deindustrialisation, and the once-thriving cités have gradually become ghettos for immigrants and experienced significant unemployment. 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 the highest in France and among the highest in Europe.[61][62] 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 north-eastern suburbs.[63]

21st century

Provisional map of the future Grand Paris metro
A massive urban renewal project, the Grand Paris, was launched in 2007 by President Nicolas Sarkozy. It consists of various economic, cultural, housing, transport and environmental projects to reach a better integration of the territories and revitalise the metropolitan economy. The most emblematic project is the €26.5 billion construction by 2030 of a new automatic metro, which will consist of 200 kilometres (120 mi) of rapid-transit lines connecting the Grand Paris regions to one another and to the centre of Paris.[64] Nevertheless, the Paris metropolitan area is still divided into numerous territorial collectivities;[65] an ad-hoc structure, Paris Métropole, was established in June 2009 to coordinate the action of 184 "Parisian" territorial collectivities.[66]

Geography

Map showing location in relation to London and Calais
Paris is located in northern central France. By road it is 450 kilometres (280 mi) south-east of London, 287 kilometres (178 mi) south of Calais, 305 kilometres (190 mi) south-west of Brussels, 774 kilometres (481 mi) north of Marseilles, 385 kilometres (239 mi) north-east of Nantes, and 135 kilometres (84 mi) south-east of Rouen.[67] Paris is located in the north-bending arc of the river Seine, spread widely on both banks of the river, and includes two inhabited islands, the Île Saint-Louis and the larger Île de la Cité, which forms the oldest part of the city. The river’s mouth on the English Channel (La Manche) is about 233 mi (375 km) downstream 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) .[68] Montmartre gained its name from the martyrdom of Saint Denis, first bishop of Paris atop the "Mons Martyrum" (Martyr's mound) in 250.
Excluding the outlying parks of Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes, Paris occupies an oval measuring about 87 km2 (34 sq mi) in area, enclosed by the 35 km (22 mi) ring road, theBoulevard Périphérique.[69] 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 (33.6 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 about 105 km2 (41 sq mi).[70] The metropolitan area of the city is 2,300 km2 (890 sq mi).[71]

Climate

Paris as seen from the Spot Satellite..
Paris has a typical Western European oceanic climate (Köppen climate classificationCfb ) which is affected by the North Atlantic Current. The overall climate throughout the year is mild and moderately wet.[72] Summer days are usually moderately warm and pleasant with average temperatures hovering between 15 and 25 °C (59 and 77 °F), and a fair amount of sunshine.[73] Each year, however, there are a few days where the temperature rises above 30 °C (86 °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 39 °C (102 °F) on some days and seldom cooled down at night.[74] More recently, the average temperature for July 2011 was 17.6 °C (63.7 °F), with an average minimum temperature of 12.9 °C (55.2 °F) and an average maximum temperature of 23.7 °C (74.7 °F).
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.[75] In winter, sunshine is scarce; days are cold but generally above freezing with temperatures around 7 °C (45 °F).[76] 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 uncommon, but the city sometimes sees light snow or flurries with or without accumulation.[77]
Rain falls throughout the year. 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 (104.7 °F) on July 28, 1948, and the lowest is a −23.9 °C (−11.0 °F) on December 10, 1879.[78]
[hide]Climate data for Paris (1981–2010)
MonthJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecYear
Record high °C (°F)16.1
(61)
21.4
(70.5)
25.7
(78.3)
30.2
(86.4)
34.8
(94.6)
37.6
(99.7)
40.4
(104.7)
39.5
(103.1)
36.2
(97.2)
28.4
(83.1)
21
(70)
17.1
(62.8)
40.4
(104.7)
Average high °C (°F)6.9
(44.4)
8.2
(46.8)
11.8
(53.2)
14.7
(58.5)
19.0
(66.2)
22.7
(72.9)
25.2
(77.4)
25.0
(77)
20.8
(69.4)
15.8
(60.4)
10.4
(50.7)
7.8
(46)
15.5
(59.9)
Average low °C (°F)2.5
(36.5)
2.8
(37)
5.1
(41.2)
6.8
(44.2)
10.5
(50.9)
13.3
(55.9)
15.5
(59.9)
15.4
(59.7)
12.5
(54.5)
9.2
(48.6)
5.3
(41.5)
3.6
(38.5)
8.5
(47.3)
Record low °C (°F)−14.6
(5.7)
−14.7
(5.5)
−9.1
(15.6)
−3.5
(25.7)
−0.1
(31.8)
3.1
(37.6)
6
(43)
6.3
(43.3)
1.8
(35.2)
−3.1
(26.4)
−14
(7)
−23.9
(−11)
−23.9
(−11)
Precipitation mm (inches)53.7
(2.114)
43.7
(1.72)
48.5
(1.909)
53
(2.09)
65
(2.56)
54.6
(2.15)
63.1
(2.484)
43
(1.69)
54.7
(2.154)
59.7
(2.35)
51.9
(2.043)
58.7
(2.311)
649.6
(25.575)
Avg. precipitation days10.29.310.49.410.38.686.98.59.59.710.7111.5
Mean monthly sunshine hours55.886.8130.2174.0201.5219.0238.7220.1171.0127.175.049.61,748.8
Percent possible sunshine21303542434549504538272037.1
Source: Meteo France[79]

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