Arrondissements of Paris

Arrondissement of Paris
Country	France
Region	Île-de-France
Department	Paris
Cantons	20
Communes	1
Préfecture	Paris
Area¹
• Total	105 km^2 (41 sq mi)
Population (2009)
• Total	2,234,105
• Density	21,000/km^2 (55,000/sq mi)
¹ French Land Register data, which exclude lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km² as well as the estuaries of rivers.

Arrondissements of Paris

The city of Paris is divided into twenty arrondissements municipaux, administrative districts, more simply referred to as arrondissements (pronounced [aʁɔ̃dismɑ̃] in French). These are not to be confused with departmental arrondissements, which subdivide the 101 French départements. The word "arrondissement", when applied to Paris, refers almost always to the municipal arrondissements listed below. The number of the arrondissement is indicated by the last two digits in most Parisian postal codes (75001 up to 75020).

Description

The twenty arrondissements are arranged in the form of a clockwise spiral (often likened to a snail shell),^[1] starting from the middle of the city, with the first on the Right Bank (north bank) of the Seine. The French cities of Lyon and Marseille have, more recently, also been subdivided into arrondissements.

In French, notably on street signs, the number is often given in Roman numerals. For example, the Eiffel Tower belongs to the VIIe arrondissement while Gare de l'Est is in the Xe arrondissement.

Population density map of Paris in 2012.

Arrondissement (R for Right Bank, L for Left Bank)	Name	Area (in km²)	Population (March 1999 census)	Population (July 2005 estimate)	Density (2005) (in h. per km²)	Peak of population
1st R	Louvre	1.826	16,888	17,700	9,693	before 1861
2nd R	Bourse	0.992	19,585	20,700	20,867	before 1861
3rd R	Temple	1.171	34,248	35,100	29,974	before 1861
4th R	Hôtel-de-Ville	1.601	30,675	28,600	17,864	before 1861
5th L	Panthéon	2.541	58,849	60,600	23,849	1911
6th L	Luxembourg	2.154	44,919	45,200	20,984	1911
7th L	Palais-Bourbon	4.088	56,985	55,400	13,552	1926
8th R	Élysée	3.881	39,314	38,700	9,972	1891
9th R	Opéra	2.179	55,838	58,500	26,847	1901
10th R	Entrepôt	2.892	89,612	88,800	30,705	1881
11th R	Popincourt	3.666	149,102	152,500	41,598	1911
12th R	Reuilly	16.324¹ 6.377²	136,591	138,300	8,472¹ 21,687²	1962
13th L	Gobelins	7.146	171,533	181,300	25,371	2005^5
14th L	Observatoire	5.621	132,844	134,700	23,964	1954
15th L	Vaugirard	8.502	225,362	232,400	27,335	1962
16th R	Passy	16.305³ 7.846^4	161,773	149,500	9,169³ 19,054^4	1962
17th R	Batignolles-Monceau	5.669	160,860	160,300	28,277	1954
18th R	Butte-Montmartre	6.005	184,586	188,700	31,424	1931
19th R	Buttes-Chaumont	6.786	172,730	187,200	27,586	2005^5
20th R	Ménilmontant	5.984	182,952	191,800	32,052	1936

Notes:
1. With the Bois de Vincennes
2. Without the Bois de Vincennes
3. With the Bois de Boulogne
4. Without the Bois de Boulogne
5. 2005 is the year of the most recent official estimate; population of these arrondissements may still be growing

Each arrondissement is subdivided administratively into four quartiers. Paris thus has eighty quartiers administratifs, each containing a police station. For a table giving the names of the eighty quartiers, see Quarters of Paris.

History

Map showing the twelve original arrondissements. The surrounding grey area shows the size of Paris after the expansion in 1860.

On 11 October 1795, Paris was divided into twelve arrondissements. They were numbered from west to east, with the numbers 1-9 situated on the Right Bank of the Seine and the numbers 10-12 on the Left Bank. Each arrondissement was subdivided into four quartiers, which corresponded to the 48 original districts created in 1790.

Emperor Napoleon III and the Prefect of the Seine Baron Haussmann developed a plan to incorporate several of the surrounding communes into the Paris jurisdiction in the late 1850s. Parliament passed the necessary legislation in 1859, and the expansion took effect when the law was promulgated on 3 November 1859 (though city taxes were not extended to the new neighborhoods until 1 July 1860).^[2] The previous twelve arrondissements were reorganized from twelve arrondissements into twenty. When Haussmann released his plan for the new boundaries and numbering system, residents of Passy objected because it placed them in the new thirteenth arrondissement, and at the time the expression "they were married in the thirteenth" was "a jocular way of referring to non-marital cohabitation". The mayor of Passy, Possoz, devised the idea of a numbering the arrondissemnents in a spiral pattern beginning with the first centered on the imperial palaces, which put Passy in the sixteenth.^[3]

In historical records, when it is important to distinguish between two systems, the original arrondissements are indicated by adding the term ancienne ("former" or "old"), for example, 2ème ancienne or 7ème anc..

List of Arrondissements' Mayors 2014-2020

	Arrondissement	Arrondissement's Mayor		Political party	Notes
	1	Jean-François Legaret		UMP
	2	Jacques Boutault		EELV
	3	Pierre Aidenbaum		PS
	4	Christophe Girard		PS
	5	Florence Berthout		UMP
	6	Jean-Pierre Lecoq		UMP
	7	Rachida Dati		UMP	European Deputy
	8	Jeanne d'Hauteserre		UMP
	9	Delphine Bürkli		UMP
	10	Rémi Féraud		PS
	11	François Vauglin		PS	Deputy of Paris
	12	Catherine Baratti-Elbaz		PS
	13	Jérôme Coumet		PS
	14	Carine Petit		PS
	15	Philippe Goujon		UMP	Deputy of Paris
	16	Claude Goasguen		UMP	Deputy of Paris
	17	Brigitte Kuster		UMP	Member of Île-de-France's Regional Council
	18	Eric Lejoindre		PS
	19	François Dagnaud		PS
	20	Frédérique Calandra		PS

See also

• Arrondissement, for other uses of the term.
• Paris districts
• Paris, je t'aime, film composed of five-minute sequences on each arrondissement

References

1. Pientka, Cheryl A.; Alexiou, Joseph (2007-03-26). Paris For Dummies. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9780470085844.
2. Carmona, Michel (2002). Haussmann: His Life and Times and the Making of Modern Paris. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. pp. 313–5.
3. Carmona, Michel (2002). Haussmann: His Life and Times and the Making of Modern Paris. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. pp. 321–2.

Further reading

• Cobb, Richard; Breach, Nicholas (1980). The Streets of Paris. London: Duckworth. ISBN 9780715611210.

External links

• Official Paris website
• Diagrams of each arrondissement showing its quartiers administratifs