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City guide · France

Paris

Paris is 105.4 km² holding 2,047,602 people, wrapped in twenty arrondissements that spiral outward from the Louvre. Almost everything a visitor comes for is ins...

Photograph · Yann Caradec from Paris, France · CC BY-SA 2.0

7,605 Places
20 Districts
Suggested stay
4–5 days
Getting around
Métro and on foot

Turn this list into a plan

Set your days, your pace and the hours you actually want to be out. The planner works around closing days and travel time, and leaves room to eat.

Plan Paris

Reviewed by Elena Voss · Roavina Travel Editor

Paris is 105.4 km² holding 2,047,602 people, wrapped in twenty arrondissements that spiral outward from the Louvre. Almost everything a visitor comes for is inside that spiral, and most of it is walkable.

The Seine cuts the city in two and everything is described in relation to it. The Right Bank to the north holds the commerce and the great institutions; the Left Bank to the south holds the universities and the bookshops. Between them the Île de la Cité and the Île Saint-Louis are where the city started.

Checked 2026-08-23

Practical information

Language spoken
French
French is the language of the Republic under Article 2 of the Constitution
Dialling code
+33 1
Paris and the Île-de-France; drop the leading 0 of 01 when calling from abroad
Currency
Euro (€, EUR)
France has used the euro as its official currency since 2002
Emergency number
112
One number across the country; 15 reaches an ambulance directly
Plug type
Type E · 220 V
Round-pin sockets use a projecting earth pin
Tap water
Safe to drink
The health ministry says tap water may be consumed safely unless local authorities issue specific advice

Planning a visit

September · September remains mild in Paris at 20.8°C by day and 12.5°C at night, with 54.7 mm precipitation.

  1. January: viable with meaningful trade-offs
  2. February: viable with meaningful trade-offs
  3. March: good time to visit
  4. April: good time to visit
  5. May: best time to visit
  6. June: best time to visit
  7. July: best time to visit
  8. August: best time to visit
  9. September: best time to visit — current month
  10. October: good time to visit
  11. November: viable with meaningful trade-offs
  12. December: viable with meaningful trade-offs

Sources

Top things to see

Ranked by importance — sitelinks, pageviews and heritage status, not editor preference.

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62 places match

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Category

Historic monuments 62 Museums 38 Places of worship 14 Nature sites 0 Viewpoints 0 Food and drink 0 Markets and shopping 0 Entertainment 0 Nightlife 0 Family attractions 0 Art and culture 0 Activities 0

Typical visit duration

Up to 1 hour 52 1 to 2 hours 9 Half a day or more 1

Interests

History 62 Art 0 Museums 0 Nature 0 Sea and beach 0 Viewpoints 0
  1. Eiffel Tower Eiffel Tower
    01 2 hours

    Eiffel Tower

    Tour Eiffel

    The Eiffel Tower was built to stand for twenty years and be taken down.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  2. Notre-Dame de Paris Notre-Dame de Paris
    02 1 hour

    Notre-Dame de Paris

    Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris

    Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris is the historic cathedral on Île de la Cité, where the west façade, soaring nave, rose windows and restored liturgical spaces make the building more than a quick photograph stop.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  3. Père Lachaise Cemetery Père Lachaise Cemetery
    03 1 hr 30 min

    Père Lachaise Cemetery

    Cimetière du Père-Lachaise

    Père Lachaise is a working cemetery that became a destination because its managers marketed it.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 20e Arrondissement
  4. Arc de Triomphe Arc de Triomphe
    04 1 hour

    Arc de Triomphe

    Treat the what it is details as provisional when arranging this stop in Paris. Keep enough flexibility to move the visit within the same area if current conditions differ from the plan.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  5. Sacré-Cœur Sacré-Cœur
    05 45 min

    Sacré-Cœur

    Basilique du Sacré-Cœur

    Sacré-Cœur was built as an apology. After France lost the war of 1870, Bishop Felix Fournier proposed a church as an act of national penitence, reading the defeat as divine punishment for the country's moral decline since the Revolution.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 18e Arrondissement
  6. Palais Garnier Palais Garnier
    06 1 hr 30 min

    Palais Garnier

    Opéra Garnier

    The Palais Garnier is what Napoleon III's Paris looked like when it stopped pretending to be restrained. He commissioned it in 1861, Charles Garnier won the competition, and it was built from 1861 to 1875, opening on 5 January 1875.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 9e Arrondissement
Show 25 more places

Source: OpenStreetMap contributors, Wikidata ·

Where to base yourself

District boundaries come from OSM administrative relations, so a district page holds exactly the places inside it — plus, for the islands and the coast, the nearest district by proximity.

How the city is laid out

The arrondissements spiral clockwise from the centre: the 1st sits at the Louvre and the Île de la Cité, and the numbers wind outward to the 20th. Learning that shape is the single most useful thing a first-time visitor can do, because every address in the city carries its arrondissement and the number tells you roughly where you are.

The Right Bank — north of the Seine — is the 1st through 4th at the centre, then the grand avenues of the 8th and 16th to the west and Montmartre in the 18th to the north. The Louvre, the Champs-Élysées, the Opéra and Sacré-Cœur are all Right Bank.

The Left Bank — south — is the 5th, 6th and 7th: the Latin Quarter, Saint-Germain, the Panthéon, the Musée d'Orsay and the Eiffel Tower. It is the older-feeling half and the one with the bookshops.

The Périphérique, completed in 1973, rings the whole of it. Inside is Paris; outside is the metropolitan area of 13,320,752 people across 18,940.7 km², which is a different thing.

Checked 2026-08-23

Getting around

The Métro, and then walking. Paris is small enough that the two together cover everything.

The Métro opened on 19 July 1900 during the World's Fair and now runs 16 lines — numbered 1 to 14 plus 3bis and 7bis — across 321 stations, 61 of which are interchanges. Stations sit 548 m apart on average, which is why a Métro journey of two stops is usually a walk. It carries 1.523 billion passengers a year, 4.17 million a day.

The RER extends further out into the suburbs and is what takes you to the airports and to Versailles. Châtelet–Les Halles, where five Métro lines meet three RER lines, is the largest interchange and the one to avoid at rush hour.

Single tickets and multi-use passes are both sold, and the Navigo Easy card is the contactless option.

Checked 2026-08-23

More city guides

Common questions

How many days does Paris need?

Four to five. Three days covers the central monuments — the Louvre, Notre-Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Élysées — at a pace that is not punishing. A fourth adds a proper museum day, and a fifth adds Montmartre or a day out at Versailles.

How do the arrondissements work?

They spiral clockwise from the centre. The 1st is at the Louvre and the Île de la Cité and the numbers wind outward to the 20th. Every Paris address carries its arrondissement, so the number tells you roughly where something is.

What is the difference between the Right Bank and the Left Bank?

The Seine. The Right Bank to the north holds the commerce and the great institutions — the Louvre, the Champs-Élysées, the Opéra, Montmartre. The Left Bank to the south holds the universities, the Latin Quarter, the Panthéon, the Musée d'Orsay and the Eiffel Tower.

Is the Métro the best way around?

For anything over a kilometre, yes. It opened on 19 July 1900 and runs 16 lines across 321 stations, with stations 548 m apart on average — which means a two-stop journey is usually faster on foot.

When is the best time to come?

April to June and September to October. August is when Parisians leave and tourists arrive, which is the worst of both — shuttered restaurants and full museums.

How big is Paris really?

The city proper is 105.4 km² with 2,047,602 people, ringed by the Périphérique completed in 1973. The metropolitan area outside it holds 13,320,752 people across 18,940.7 km².