49 Fun Facts About Paris

Paris's biggest airport, at Roissy, is named after which French leader?

Charles de Gaulle never saw it: he died in 1970, four years before the airport that bears his name opened.

In what pattern are Paris's 20 arrondissements numbered?

A spiral from the centre starts with the 1st arrondissement, home to the official buildings, and each number ends that district's postcode, 75001 to 75020.

Paris's nickname 'City of Light' is partly a nod to its role in which era?

The Age of Enlightenment is one reason given, though some credit the street lanterns Paris's first police chief put up from 1667.

What was the Roman name for the town that became Paris?

Lutetia was home to the Parisii, a Gallic tribe, and it is from them that the city later took the name Paris.

Which Frankish king, baptised at Reims, made Paris his capital from 508?

Clovis united the Franks under one king, yet after his death his four sons split his kingdom between them.

The Eiffel Tower was built for celebrations marking the centenary of what?

The French Revolution's centenary gave Paris a tower that leading artists publicly condemned as useless and monstrous, yet it became the city's symbol.

Which New York skyscraper ended the Eiffel Tower's 41-year reign as the world's tallest structure?

The Chrysler Building's spire was secretly assembled inside the tower and hoisted into place in about 90 minutes to beat a rival skyscraper.

What saved the Eiffel Tower when its 20-year permit ran out in 1909?

Its value for radio telegraphy made it too useful to pull down, and from 1910 it beamed time signals that ships used to fix their position.

Tailor Franz Reichelt died jumping from the Eiffel Tower in 1912 while testing what?

A parachute suit was only meant to be tested on a dummy, but Reichelt jumped himself, and his fall was caught on film.

When the Louvre opened as a public museum in 1793, where had most of its paintings come from?

The monarchy and the Church supplied most of it; Napoleon's armies later filled the museum with loot, but after his fall many works went back to their owners.

Which French king converted the medieval Louvre fortress into the primary royal residence in 1546?

Francis I rebuilt the fortress as a Renaissance palace, but once Louis XIV chose Versailles, the Louvre was left to house the royal art collection.

Who stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911?

Vincenzo Peruggia kept the painting hidden in his Paris room for two years, and the publicity around the theft turned it into a world-famous icon.

What does the bronze medallion set in the square in front of Notre-Dame mark?

Point zero for road distances lies on a square where digs for a planned underground car park in the 1960s uncovered ruins that are now kept in a crypt below.

Notre-Dame stands on which island in the Seine?

Île de la Cité was the kings' seat until the 14th century, and its old palace prison, the Conciergerie, later held Marie Antoinette before her execution.

What is the name of the bell-ringer in the 1831 novel that stirred support for restoring Notre-Dame?

Quasimodo's story drew such public interest that the neglected cathedral was restored under architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc.

Which relic, rescued from Notre-Dame's 2019 fire, returned to the cathedral days after its December 2024 reopening?

The Crown of Thorns was carried to safety by Paris firefighters, among them their chaplain, Father Jean-Marc Fournier, who went into the burning cathedral.

Napoleon commissioned the Arc de Triomphe in 1806 after which victory?

Austerlitz inspired the arch, but it took three decades to build and was only finished in 1836, long after Napoleon's fall.

In August 1919 pilot Charles Godefroy did what at the Arc de Triomphe?

Flew a biplane through it: Charles Godefroy did it in protest after airmen were ordered to march on foot in the victory parade.

What was the old name of the square where twelve avenues meet around the Arc de Triomphe?

Place de l'Étoile, 'Star Square', took its name from the twelve avenues that radiate from it like the points of a star.

The first Paris Métro line opened in July 1900 during which event?

The World's Fair was on when Line 1 opened on 19 July 1900, and so were the Olympics, which Paris staged as part of the fair.

Who designed the Paris Métro's famous Art Nouveau station entrances?

Hector Guimard's entrances were mocked at first, and in 1904 the Opéra station turned his design down in favour of a classical one.

Why were millions of Parisians' bones moved into old quarries beneath the city from the 1780s?

Cemeteries were overflowing: Holy Innocents' ground stood two metres above the street and a cellar wall beside it gave way; over six million people now lie below.

To lure Parisians to the new Père Lachaise cemetery, officials moved in the remains of which playwright?

Molière's reburial in 1817, alongside La Fontaine's, did the trick: the cemetery grew from 13 graves in 1804 to over 33,000 by 1830.

Sacré-Cœur was proposed in the aftermath of France's defeat in which war?

Franco-Prussian War defeat inspired the vow to build it, and its hilltop site, where the Commune began, still makes it controversial on the French left.

Sacré-Cœur stays brilliant white because its Château-Landon travertine does what when it rains?

Exudes calcite: rain draws it out of the stone. The First World War then pushed the basilica's consecration, planned for October 1914, back to 1919.

Which Paris cabaret, opened in 1889, is famed as the birthplace of the modern can-can?

The Moulin Rouge won international fame fast, helped by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's posters and paintings of its dancers.

The Panthéon was originally built as a church dedicated to which patron of Paris?

Genevieve's church was barely finished when the National Assembly turned it into a tomb for great men, and Voltaire's remains arrived in July 1791.

Who was the first person entombed in the Panthéon after it was returned to mausoleum use in 1881?

Victor Hugo's state funeral drew more than two million mourners, and he was laid in the Panthéon ten days after his death in May 1885.

Who directed the boulevards, parks and sewers programme that gave Paris its modern look in 1853-70?

Georges-Eugène Haussmann's costs soared, and Jules Ferry mocked them in a pamphlet titled 'Les Comptes fantastiques d'Haussmann'.

The Paris Commune of 1871 governed the city for roughly how long before its bloody suppression?

Two months was long enough for the Commune to pull down the Vendôme Column that Napoleon had raised, before troops crushed it in May 1871.

Which German general surrendered Paris to the Allies on 25 August 1944?

Dietrich von Choltitz later cast himself as the man who defied Hitler's order to leave Paris in ruins, but historians say he lacked the means to destroy it.

Which French general's armoured division led the Allies into Paris in August 1944?

Philippe Leclerc defied his American corps commander and sent a vanguard ahead, which reached the Hôtel de Ville at about 9:22 pm on 24 August.

Which is the oldest bridge still standing across the Seine in Paris?

Pont Neuf means 'New Bridge', a name it earned as the first Paris bridge built without houses lining it.

Which Paris bridge, topped by four gilded statues, stands in line with the Esplanade des Invalides?

Pont Alexandre III was kept low, with a single steel arch, so it would not block the view of the Invalides from the Champs-Élysées.

The Musée d'Orsay, home to the world's largest Impressionist collection, occupies a former what?

Railway station platforms too short for longer trains ended the Gare d'Orsay's mainline service, and the building reopened as the museum in December 1986.

The Centre Pompidou was designed by Renzo Piano and which British architect?

Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano put the building's pipes outside, colour-coded blue for air, green for water and yellow for electrics, to free up space inside.

In Greek myth, who rested in the fields that gave the Champs-Élysées its name?

Heroes and the righteous rested there; Homer put the Elysian Fields at the western edge of the earth, but Virgil placed them in the underworld.

From 1975 to 2023 the Champs-Élysées hosted the finish of which annual sporting event?

Tour de France riders missed the avenue in 2024, when preparations for the Paris Olympics forced the race to finish in Nice instead.

Roland Garros, the Paris tennis Grand Slam, is played on which surface?

Clay slows the ball and makes it bounce high, blunting big servers and favouring patient baseliners, which is why Roland Garros is so physically gruelling.

PSG was founded in 1970 by merging Stade Saint-Germain with which club?

Paris FC split away again in 1972 and kept the top-flight place, while PSG had to restart in the third division.

The 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony broke with tradition by doing what?

Holding it on the Seine, outside a stadium, meant a vast security operation, and officials cut the expected crowd from about 600,000 to around 300,000.

Which city was the first to host the Summer Olympics three times, before Paris matched it in 2024?

London's middle Games, in 1948, were the 'Austerity Games': rationing meant no new venues, and athletes slept in barracks and colleges.

'Paris syndrome', culture shock in disappointed visitors, is noted mainly among tourists from which country?

Japan's idealised media image of Paris can clash with the reality of language barriers and crowded streets, a gap psychiatrist Hiroaki Ota described.

Under what name did Disneyland Paris open in 1992?

Euro Disney struggled at first, with prices too high for European visitors and heavy debts, before a financial rescue turned it around.

The 2001 film Amélie, starring Audrey Tautou, is set mainly in which Paris district?

Montmartre's real café where Amélie waits tables drew so many fans that its chairs kept getting stolen.

In Pixar's Paris-set Ratatouille, the rat Remy dreams of cooking in the restaurant of which late chef?

Auguste Gusteau's kitchen grew from research: Brad Bird's crew dined at top Paris restaurants, and chef Thomas Keller let the producer intern in his kitchen.

The croissant descends from the kipferl, which August Zang brought to Paris in the late 1830s from where?

Austria's kipferl was a crescent roll, and French bakers later swapped its brioche-style recipe for flaky laminated pastry, creating the modern croissant.

France's 1993 'Bread Decree' requires that traditional baguettes be what?

Made without pre-made dough, a 'tradition' baguette is shielded from the industrial shortcuts that spread through French bakeries after World War II.

At the First Battle of the Marne in 1914, which Paris vehicles did the army requisition to rush soldiers to the front?

Taxis kept their meters running and the treasury paid the fares, yet historians doubt they changed the battle; their real effect was on morale.