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Paris is the capital and largest city of France. The city is built on an arc of the river Seine, and is thus divided into two parts: the right bank to the north and the smaller left bank in the south.
Administration
The city is divided into twenty numerically organised districts, the arrondissements.
These districts are numbered in a spiral pattern with the first district at the center of the city. The city proper has about 2 million residents. The Greater Paris metropolitan area has about 14 million residents. It was named after the Gallic Parisii tribe.
Paris has been a departement since c.1960. Before that, it was only a part of the departement of the Seine. The change in boundaries resulted in the creation of 3 new departments forming a ring around Paris, often called "la petite couronne": Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-St-Denis and Val-de-Marne.
Transport
Paris is served by two principal airports: Orly (East) and the international airport Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle (North).
Paris is densely covered by an underground railway system, the Paris Metro.
It is surrounded by a large orbital motorway, the Peripherique.
Places
Notable places/things in Paris:
- The Eiffel Tower
- The Louvre - a huge museum housing many works of art, including the famous Mona Lisa
- Versailles - a royal palace and gardens to the southeast of the city
- Arc de Triomphe - war monument
- Musee d'Orsay - an art museum housed in a converted 19th century railway station, mainly Impressionists.
- The Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris on the Ile de la Cité
- The Sacre Coeur - church on the hillock of Montmartre
- The Samaritaine Building - department store from the start of the 20th century
- The Statue of Liberty - A smaller copy of the Statue of Liberty in the harbour of New York City.
- The Centre Georges Pompidou - houses the museum of modern art
- Les Halles
- Disneyland Paris - amusement park to the east of the city
Link
- Official Paris website: http://www.paris.fr/