The wall of Charles V, built from 1356 to 1383 is one of the city walls of Paris built on orders granted by Charles V of France. It was built on the right bank of the river Seine outside the wall of Philippe Auguste. In the 1640s, the western part of the wall of Charles V was demolished and replaced by the larger Louis XIII wall, with the demolished material reused for the new wall. This new enclosure (enceinte) was completely destroyed in the 1670s and was replaced by the Grands Boulevards.
The wall of Philippe Auguste was created at the beginning of the 13th century and enclosed 253 hectares with houses and vegetable and vine fields allowing people to protect from a possible military siege. But decades later, the fields had been replaced by homes and crops had been pushed outside the city walls. Several suburbs were growing rapidly, particularly in the west. The growing population could no longer be contained in the city. Furthermore, with the Hundred Years War, it became necessary to build a new enclosure to protect the capital of France.
Étienne Marcel, provost of the merchants, began to build a moat from 1356, a few hundred yards beyond the wall of Philippe Auguste. Only the right side was affected by this expansion. King Charles V, from 1358, ordered the fortification and the addition of a large and deep ditch that would be filled by the river Seine.
The new fortification extended westward beyond the Louvre, which lost its function as a fortress. Charles V transformed the Louvre into a residence, but without changing its dimensions. He established a library there with 973 books.
On the east, the new home of the King, the Hotel Saint-Pol, was poorly protected. Charles V decided to build the Chastel Saint-Antoine, the Parisians called it the Bastide Saint-Antoine, then la Bastille (Bastide or Bastille is an old French word for castle). In 1370, the provost Hugues Aubriot laid the cornerstone of the building which was completed in 1382. The city then spread over 440 hectares (1,100 acres) with more than 150,000 inhabitants.
The wall, as well as its extension built by Louis XIII on the west side was destroyed in 1670, on orders of Louis XIV after his victories in the Netherlands and Germany.
The wall left the Seine at the tour du bois between the Pont du Carrousel and the Pont Royal. Then the wall was north of the Rue Saint-Honoré and Palais-Royal then to north-east along the Place des Victoires and the Rue d'Aboukir (opened on the location of the moat) up to the Porte Saint-Denis. It then followed the Grands Boulevards (Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, Boulevard Saint-Martin, Boulevard du Temple, Boulevard des Filles du Calvaire, Boulevard Beaumarchais). The wall returned to the Seine on the east at the tour de Billy.
The wall on the left bank of the river, built by Philippe-Auguste was kept, leaving the new faubourg Saint-Germain outside the walls.
The wall on the right bank included only six gates :
The 12th arrondissement of Paris is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. Situated on the right bank of the River Seine, it is the easternmost arrondissement of Paris, as well as the largest by area. In 2019, it had a population of 139,297.
The Tuileries Garden is a public garden between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. Created by Catherine de' Medici as the garden of the Tuileries Palace in 1564, it was opened to the public in 1667 and became a public park after the French Revolution. Since the 19th century, it has been a place for Parisians to celebrate, meet, stroll and relax. During the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, it was the site of the Olympic and Paralympic cauldron.
The Musée Carnavalet in Paris is dedicated to the history of the city. The museum occupies two neighboring mansions: the Hôtel Carnavalet and the former Hôtel Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau. On the advice of Baron Haussmann, the civil servant who transformed Paris in the latter half of the 19th century, the Hôtel Carnavalet was purchased by the Municipal Council of Paris in 1866; it was opened to the public in 1880. By the latter part of the 20th century, the museum was full to capacity. The Hôtel Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau was annexed to the Carnavalet and opened to the public in 1989.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Paris, France.
Haussmann's renovation of Paris was a vast public works programme commissioned by French Emperor Napoleon III and directed by his prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, between 1853 and 1870. It included the demolition of medieval neighbourhoods that were deemed overcrowded and unhealthy by officials at the time, the building of wide avenues, new parks and squares, the annexation of the suburbs surrounding Paris, and the construction of new sewers, fountains and aqueducts. Haussmann's work was met with fierce opposition, and he was dismissed by Napoleon III in 1870. Work on his projects continued until 1927. The street plan and distinctive appearance of the centre of Paris today are largely the result of Haussmann's renovation.
While Paris is encircled by the Boulevard Périphérique, the city gates of Paris are the access points to the city for pedestrians and other road users. As Paris has had successive ring roads through the centuries, city gates are found inside the modern-day Paris.
The city walls of Paris refers to the city walls that surrounded Paris, as it grew from ancient times until the 20th century, built primarily to defend the city but also for administrative reasons. Several successive city walls were built over the centuries, either adding to existing walls or replacing demolished ones, through 1846, when construction of the Thiers wall was completed.
The Wall of Philip Augustus is the oldest city wall of Paris (France) whose plan is accurately known. Partially integrated into buildings, more traces of it remain than of the later fortifications.
The Fountains in Paris originally provided drinking water for city residents, and now are decorative features in the city's squares and parks. Paris has more than two hundred fountains, the oldest dating back to the 16th century. It also has more than one hundred Wallace drinking fountains. Most of the fountains are the property of the municipality.
The Porte Saint-Antoine was one of the gates of Paris. There were two gates named the Porte Saint-Antoine, both now demolished, of which the best known was that guarded by the Bastille, on the site now occupied by the start of the Rue de la Bastille in the 4th arrondissement of Paris.
This article presents the main landmarks in the city of Paris within administrative limits, divided by its 20 arrondissements. Landmarks located in the suburbs of Paris, outside of its administrative limits, while within the metropolitan area are not included in this article.
The city of Paris has notable examples of architecture from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. It was the birthplace of the Gothic style, and has important monuments of the French Renaissance, Classical revival, the Flamboyant style of the reign of Napoleon III, the Belle Époque, and the Art Nouveau style. The great Exposition Universelle (1889) and 1900 added Paris landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower and Grand Palais. In the 20th century, the Art Deco style of architecture first appeared in Paris, and Paris architects also influenced the postmodern architecture of the second half of the century.
In the 10th century Paris was a provincial cathedral city of little political or economic significance, but under the kings of the Capetian dynasty who ruled France between 987 and 1328, it developed into an important commercial and religious center and the seat of the royal administration of the country. The Île de la Cité became the site of the royal palace and the new cathedral of Notre-Dame, begun in 1163. The Left Bank was occupied by important monasteries, including the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the Abbey of St Genevieve. In the late 1100s, the collection of colleges on the left bank became one of the leading universities in Europe. The Right Bank, where the ports, central markets, artisans and merchants were located, became the commercial center of the city, and the merchants assumed an important role in running the city. Paris became a center for the creation of illuminated manuscripts and the birthplace of Gothic architecture. Despite civil wars, the plague, and foreign occupation, Paris became the most populous city in the Western world during the Middle Ages.
Paris during the reign of King Louis-Philippe (1830–1848) was the city described in the novels of Honoré de Balzac and Victor Hugo. Its population increased from 785,000 in 1831 to 1,053,000 in 1848, as the city grew to the north and west, while the poorest neighborhoods in the center became even more crowded.
Paris in the 17th century was the largest city in Europe, with a population of half a million, matched in size only by London. It was ruled in turn by three monarchs; Henry IV, Louis XIII, and Louis XIV, and saw the building of some of the city's most famous parks and monuments, including the Pont Neuf, the Palais Royal, the newly joined Louvre and Tuileries Palace, the Place des Vosges, and the Luxembourg Garden. It was also a flourishing center of French science and the arts; it saw the founding of the Paris Observatory, the French Academy of Sciences and the first botanical garden in Paris, which also became the first park in Paris open to the public. The first permanent theater opened, the Comédie-Française was founded, and the first French opera and French ballets had their premieres. Paris became the home of the new Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and of some of France's most famous writers, including Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, La Fontaine and Moliere. Urban innovations for the city included the first street lighting, the first public transport, the first building code, and the first new aqueduct since Roman times.
The Louvre Castle, also referred to as the Medieval Louvre, was a castle begun by Philip II of France on the right bank of the Seine, to reinforce the city wall he had built around Paris. Over time, it was expanded but was generally demolished above ground in stages between 1528 and 1660 to make way for expanding the Louvre Palace, while some parts of the castle's foundations were incorporated in construction of the later palace.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Paris: