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City guide · France

Paris

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

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.

Reviewed by Elena Voss · Roavina Travel Editor

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

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

Planning a visit

Suggested stay
4–5 days
Getting around
Métro and on foot
  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
  • Best time
  • Good time
  • Viable with trade-offs
  • Difficult conditions

Sources

Top things to see

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

Filter the list

51 places match
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Category

Historic monuments 0 Museums 38 Places of worship 0 Nature sites 0 Viewpoints 0 Food and drink 0 Markets and shopping 0 Entertainment 0 Nightlife 0 Family attractions 0 Art and culture 13 Activities 0

Typical visit duration

Up to 1 hour 13 1 to 2 hours 31 Half a day or more 7

Interests

History 114 Art 27 Museums 51 Nature 26 Sea and beach 26 Viewpoints 0
  1. Louvre Museum Louvre Museum
    01 3 hours

    Louvre Museum

    Musée du Louvre

    The Louvre is the most-visited art museum on earth and it was a fortress before it was anything else.

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  2. Musée d'Orsay Musée d'Orsay
    02 3 hours

    Musée d'Orsay

    The Musée d'Orsay is a railway station that outlived its trains. The Gare d'Orsay was built between 1898 and 1900 on the Left Bank for the Exposition Universelle, by Lucien Magne, Émile Bénard and Victor Laloux, in full Beaux-Arts dress.

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  3. Catacombs of Paris Catacombs of Paris
    03 1 hour

    Catacombs of Paris

    Catacombes de Paris

    The Catacombs of Paris hold roughly six million people in a former limestone quarry, moved there because the city's cemeteries had run out of room.

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 14e Arrondissement
  4. Grand Palais Grand Palais
    04 2 hours

    Grand Palais

    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
    • Museum
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  5. Conciergerie Conciergerie
    05 1 hr 15 min

    Conciergerie

    The Conciergerie was a royal palace before it was a prison, and the prison is what everyone remembers.

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  6. Petit Palais Petit Palais
    06 1 hr 30 min

    Petit Palais

    Petit Palais, Musée des beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris

    The Petit Palais was built for the 1900 World's Fair as an exhibition hall and has held the City of Paris's fine arts museum ever since.

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  7. Centre Georges Pompidou Centre Georges Pompidou
    07 2 hours

    Centre Georges Pompidou

    The Centre Pompidou is a building turned inside out, and it is closed until 2030.

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  8. Musée des Arts et Métiers Musée des Arts et Métiers
    08 2 hours

    Musée des Arts et Métiers

    The Musée des Arts et Métiers is Europe's oldest technology museum, founded in 1794 to collect and preserve the machines and instruments of French industry, and it has occupied a former medieval priory ever since.

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 3e Arrondissement
  9. Moulin Rouge Moulin Rouge
    09 2 hours

    Moulin Rouge

    Moulin Rouge is the famous cabaret on Boulevard de Clichy in Pigalle, at the southern foot of Montmartre. Its illuminated red windmill marks a venue closely associated with the French cancan and Parisian nightlife.

    • Must see
    • Art and culture venue
    • Paris 18e Arrondissement
  10. Bataclan Bataclan
    10 15 min

    Bataclan

    Le Bataclan

    The Bataclan is a concert hall of 1,694 seats at 50 Boulevard Voltaire, and it is the site of one of the worst attacks in modern French history.

    • Must see
    • Art and culture venue
    • Paris 11e Arrondissement
  11. Musée de la Vie romantique Musée de la Vie romantique
    11 1 hour

    Musée de la Vie romantique

    Musée de la Vie Romantique

    The Musée de la Vie romantique occupies the house and studio of the painter Ary Scheffer, in a district that was the address of Romantic-era Paris rather than a stop added to it later.

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 9e Arrondissement
  12. Philharmonie de Paris Philharmonie de Paris
    12 2 hr 30 min

    Philharmonie de Paris

    The Philharmonie de Paris is a concert hall clad in a swirl of aluminium panels shaped like birds in flight, built to give the city's main orchestra a home purpose-built for symphonic sound.

    • Must see
    • Art and culture venue
    • Paris 19e Arrondissement
  13. Opéra Bastille Opéra Bastille
    13 1 hr 30 min

    Opéra Bastille

    Opéra Bastille opened on 13 July 1989, timed to the bicentenary of the storming of the Bastille prison, on the footprint of the old Bastille railway station at Place de la Bastille.

    • Must see
    • Art and culture venue
    • Paris 12e Arrondissement
  14. Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine
    14 2 hr 30 min

    Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine

    Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine is a museum of French architecture and heritage in the east wing of the Palais de Chaillot at Trocadéro, opened in its current form in 2007.

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  15. Musée d'art moderne de Paris Musée d'art moderne de Paris
    15 1 hr 30 min

    Musée d'art moderne de Paris

    Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris

    Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris is the city of Paris's own museum of modern art, occupying the east wing of the Palais de Tokyo on Avenue du Président Wilson.

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  16. Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie
    16 2 hr 30 min

    Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie

    Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie sits inside Parc de la Villette in the north-east of Paris and opened in 1986 inside the shell of a large, unfinished cattle-market building from the 1960s that was repurposed for the museum rather…

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 19e Arrondissement
  17. Musée Rodin Musée Rodin
    17 2 hours

    Musée Rodin

    The Musee Rodin occupies the Hotel Biron, an eighteenth-century mansion on Rue de Varenne in the 7th arrondissement that had already passed through use as a convent school before the state let it out cheaply as artists' studios in the…

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  18. Musée du quai Branly Musée du quai Branly
    18 2 hours

    Musée du quai Branly

    The Musee du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac gathers non-Western art and material culture from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas under one roof, a collection that had previously been split between the ethnographic Musee de l'Homme and the Musee…

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  19. Musée de l'Orangerie Musée de l'Orangerie
    19 1 hr 15 min

    Musée de l'Orangerie

    The Musee de l'Orangerie sits at the western end of the Tuileries Garden, in a building put up in 1852 under Napoleon III to overwinter the garden's orange trees, a purely functional greenhouse rather than a building meant to be…

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  20. Musée Marmottan Monet Musée Marmottan Monet
    20 1 hr 30 min

    Musée Marmottan Monet

    The Musee Marmottan Monet occupies a former hunting lodge built for the Duke of Valmy on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne, bought in the late nineteenth century by the businessman Jules Marmottan and later expanded by his son…

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  21. Musée Picasso Musée Picasso
    21 1 hr 30 min

    Musée Picasso

    Musée national Picasso-Paris

    The Musee Picasso occupies the Hotel Sale, a seventeenth-century mansion in the Marais built in the 1650s for Pierre Aubert de Fontenay, a salt-tax collector whose unpopular trade gave the building its nickname, sale meaning salted.

    • High
    • Museum
    • Paris 3e Arrondissement
  22. Bourse de commerce Bourse de commerce
    22 1 hr 30 min

    Bourse de commerce

    Bourse de Commerce

    The Bourse de Commerce is a Paris contemporary art museum housed in a historic circular building near Les Halles and the Louvre district.

    • High
    • Museum
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  23. Louis Vuitton Foundation Louis Vuitton Foundation
    23 2 hours

    Louis Vuitton Foundation

    Fondation Louis Vuitton

    The Fondation Louis Vuitton is a contemporary art museum in the Bois de Boulogne, commissioned by Bernard Arnault, chairman of the luxury group LVMH, and designed by the American architect Frank Gehry.

    • High
    • Museum
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  24. Musée Grévin Musée Grévin
    24 1 hr 30 min

    Musée Grévin

    Musée Grévin is a wax museum on Boulevard Montmartre, opened in 1882.

    • High
    • Museum
    • Paris 9e Arrondissement
  25. Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume
    25 1 hr 15 min

    Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume

    Jeu de Paume

    The Jeu de Paume is a photography and moving-image gallery in the Tuileries Garden's north-west corner, in a building constructed in 1861 as a court for jeu de paume, the indoor precursor of tennis played by Napoleon III's court.

    • High
    • Museum
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  26. Guimet Museum Guimet Museum
    26 2 hours

    Guimet Museum

    Musée Guimet

    The Musee national des Arts asiatiques - Guimet holds the largest collection of Asian art outside Asia itself, spanning Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Tibet, China, Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia in one national museum.

    • High
    • Museum
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  27. Palais de Tokyo Palais de Tokyo
    27 1 hr 30 min

    Palais de Tokyo

    The Palais de Tokyo is Paris's largest centre for contemporary art, occupying the eastern wing of a building raised for the 1937 International Exposition by architects Jean-Claude Dondel, Andre Aubert, Paul Viard and Marcel Dastugue.

    • High
    • Museum
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  28. Musée Jacquemart-André Musée Jacquemart-André
    28 1 hr 30 min

    Musée Jacquemart-André

    Musée Jacquemart-André is a Paris museum housed in the former private mansion of Édouard André and Nélie Jacquemart.

    • High
    • Museum
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  29. Musée Carnavalet Musée Carnavalet
    29 2 hours

    Musée Carnavalet

    Musee Carnavalet is the museum of the history of Paris, occupying two adjoining Marais mansions: the Hotel Carnavalet, built in the 16th century and remodelled by Francois Mansart in 1655, and the neighbouring Hotel Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau.

    • Notable
    • Museum
    • Paris 3e Arrondissement
  30. Musée de Cluny Musée de Cluny
    30 1 hr 30 min

    Musée de Cluny

    Musée de Cluny, formally the Musée national du Moyen Âge, brings together Roman archaeology, a late-medieval residence and medieval art in one compact Latin Quarter site.

    • Notable
    • Museum
    • Paris 5e Arrondissement
  31. Maison de Balzac Maison de Balzac
    31 45 min

    Maison de Balzac

    Maison de Balzac is the house where the novelist Honore de Balzac lived from 1840 to 1847, on rue Raynouard in what was then the village of Passy and is now the 16th arrondissement of Paris.

    • Notable
    • Museum
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  32. Muséum national d'histoire naturelle Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
    32 2 hours

    Muséum national d'histoire naturelle

    The Museum national d'histoire naturelle is France's national natural history museum, founded in 1793 out of the royal Jardin du Roi, and it occupies several linked sites across the Jardin des Plantes in the 5th arrondissement.

    • Notable
    • Museum
    • Paris 5e Arrondissement
  33. Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme
    33 1 hr 30 min

    Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme

    The Musee d'art et d'histoire du Judaisme, known as the MAHJ, is France's museum of Jewish art and history, opened in 1998 in the Hotel de Saint-Aignan, a 17th-century mansion in the Marais, 3rd arrondissement.

    • Notable
    • Museum
    • Paris 3e Arrondissement
  34. Musée de l'Armée Musée de l'Armée
    34 2 hr 30 min

    Musée de l'Armée

    The Musee de l'Armee is France's national army museum, occupying wings of the Hotel des Invalides in the 7th arrondissement, the complex Louis XIV built in the 1670s as a hospital and retirement home for wounded soldiers.

    • Notable
    • Museum
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  35. Musée de l'Homme Musée de l'Homme
    35 2 hr 30 min

    Musée de l'Homme

    The Musee de l'Homme is France's national anthropology museum, and it studies one subject only: what makes a human being, told through evolution, biological diversity and culture rather than through any single region or period.

    • Notable
    • Museum
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  36. Musée Zadkine Musée Zadkine
    36 1 hr 30 min

    Musée Zadkine

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 6e Arrondissement
  39. Salle Pleyel Salle Pleyel
    39 1 hour

    Salle Pleyel

    • Must see
    • Art and culture venue
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  41. Musée de la Légion d'honneur Musée de la Légion d'honneur
    41 1 hr 30 min

    Musée de la Légion d'honneur

    Musée de la Légion d'Honneur et des Ordres de Chevalerie

    • High
    • Museum
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  42. Théâtre Marigny Théâtre Marigny
    42 1 hour

    Théâtre Marigny

    • High
    • Art and culture venue
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  45. Musée Boleslas Biegas Musée Boleslas Biegas
    45 1 hr 30 min

    Musée Boleslas Biegas

    Musée Bolesław Biegas is an exhibition devoted to the Polish sculptor, painter, playwright and essayist Bolesław Biegas, who lived from 1877 to 1954.

    • High
    • Museum
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  46. Mundolingua Mundolingua
    46 1 hr 30 min

    Mundolingua

    • High
    • Museum
    • Paris 6e Arrondissement
  48. Pavillon du Charolais Pavillon du Charolais
    48 1 hour

    Pavillon du Charolais

    Le Hall de la Chanson

    • High
    • Art and culture venue
    • Paris 19e Arrondissement
  49. La République La République
    49 1 hour

    La République

    • Notable
    • Art and culture venue
    • Paris 6e Arrondissement
  50. Eve Eve
    50 1 hour

    Eve

    Ève

    • Notable
    • Art and culture venue
    • Paris 19e Arrondissement
  51. Dawn Dawn
    51 1 hour

    Dawn

    L'Aurore

    • Notable
    • Art and culture venue
    • Paris 6e Arrondissement

Source: OpenStreetMap contributors, Wikidata ·

More city guides

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

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.