Lutetia's Parisii became a twenty-arrondissement capital
Paris is France's capital and largest city, about 2.04 million people on 105.4 square kilometers as of January 2026, plus a far larger metro. Julius Caesar recorded Lutetia Parisiorum; the name recalls the Iron Age Parisii. Twenty arrondissements and Haussmann boulevards structure today's politics and UNESCO home.
The Parisii, a Gallic people, settled around the middle of the third century BC where a north-south trade route crossed the Seine at the Ile de la Cite; they traded as far as Iberia and struck their own coins. Scholars still argue whether their name meant cauldron or makers. Caesar took the basin in 52 BC, and Roman Lutetia grew on the Left Bank with a forum, baths, temples and an amphitheatre. Saint Denis, the first bishop, brought Christianity in the mid-third century, Clovis made the city his capital from 508, and Vikings sacked it in 845.
By 1200 it dominated French politics, trade, religion and culture. Bishop Maurice de Sully began Notre Dame in 1163, a project that took 182 years, and Philip Augustus enlarged the Louvre fortress, built the first walls between 1190 and 1215 and paved the main streets. With 200,000 people in 1328, Paris was Europe's biggest city, against London's 80,000 in 1300. English-backed Burgundians held it from 1418, and Henry V entered in 1420; Joan of Arc's 1429 attempt failed, and occupation lasted until 1436. The Catholic League made it a stronghold, and the St Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572 killed thousands of Protestants before Henry IV converted and entered in 1594.
Richelieu added five bridges and a palace that became the Palais-Royal, but after the Fronde uprisings Louis XIV moved his court to Versailles in 1682. Over the next century the population rose by roughly a quarter of a million, reaching 650,000 by 1780, as the Champs-Elysees pushed west. On 14 July 1789 crowds seized guns at the Invalides and stormed the Bastille; in 1793 the king, queen and mayor went to the guillotine. Napoleon installed a prefect answerable to him and began the Arc de Triomphe.
Haussmann's boulevards and parks later earned it the title capital of the nineteenth century. Today about 2.04 million people live in 105.4 square kilometres, divided into twenty arrondissements, within a metropolitan area of 13.3 million. It hosts the president, parliament, UNESCO and the OECD, and in 2024 Charles de Gaulle was the EU's busiest airport.
Source: Paris
