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Paris (nicknamed the City of light) is the capital city of France, and the largest city in France. The area is 105 sq km, and around 2.15 million people live there. If suburbs are counted, the population of the Paris area rises to 12 million people.

The Seine River runs through the oldest part of Paris, and divides it into two parts, known as the Left Bank and the Right Bank. It is surrounded by many forests.

Paris is also the center of French economy, politics, traffic and culture. Paris has many art museums and historical buildings. As a traffic center, Paris has a very good underground subway system (called the Metro). It also has two airports. The Metro was built in 1900, and its total length is more than 200 km.

The city has a multi-cultural style, because 20% of the people there are from outside France. There are many different restaurants with all kinds of food. Paris also has some types of pollution like air pollution and light pollution.

History

Julius Caesar conquered the Celtic Parisii tribe in 51 BC. The Romans called the place Lutetia, or Lutetia Parisiorum. The place got a shorter name, Paris.

As the Roman Empire began to fall apart in the West, the Germanic tribe called the Franks moved in, taking it in 464. In 506, their king Clovis I made it his capital. Charlemagne moved his capital to Aachen in Germany, but Paris continued as an important town and was attacked by the Vikings twice. When Hugh Capet became king of France in 987, he again made Paris his capital. For a long time, the kings only controlled Paris and the surrounding area, as much of the rest of France was in the hands of barons or English. During the Hundred Years War, the English controlled Paris from 1420 to 1437.

During the Protestant Reformation, a huge massacre of French Protestants started there in 1572, called the Saint Bartholomew Day Massacre. Paris saw many other troubles over the years of the "Ancien Regime" (Old Kingdom), then in 1789, the French Revolution began in Paris, leading to more massacres.

Paris was the Capital of the French Empire which, as well as France, covered Spain, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy, most of Germany and some of Austria, Croatia, Slovenia and Poland. The Empire ruled by Napoleon was from 1804-1814/1815. The Russian army seized Paris from Napoleon in 1814, and the Prussian army captured it in 1871. The next time it was captured was by the Nazi Germans in 1940. The Allies freed the city in 1944 and it has not since been captured.

Climate

Paris has a temperate oceanic climate. It has warm summers and cool winters. It has moderate rainfall year-round.


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