Paris

Paris, city and capital of France, situated within the north-central a part of the country. People were alive on the location of the present day city located sideways the Seine some 233 miles (375 km) upstream from the river’s mouth on English Channel (La Manche) by about 7600 BCE. The fashionable city has spread from the island (the Ile de la Cite) and much beyond both banks of the Seine.

Paris lives a central position within the rich agricultural region referred to as the Paris Basin, and it establishes one among eight departments of the Ile-de-France administrative region. It's far and away the country’s most vital centre of commerce and culture. Area city, 41 square miles (105 square km) metropolitan area, 890 square miles (2,300 square km). Pop. (2012) city, 2,265,886; (2015 est.) urban agglomeration, 10,858,000.

Eiffel Tower

The decide to build a tower 300 metres high was conceived as a part of preparations for the World's Fair of 1889.

The wager was to study the likelihood of erecting an iron tower on the Champ de Mars with a square base, 125 metres across and 300 metres tall.

Emile Nouguier and Maurice Koechlin the 2 chief engineers in Eiffel's company, had the thought for a really tall tower in June 1884. it had been to be designed sort of a large pylon with four columns of lattice work girders, separated at the bottom and coming together at the highest , and joined to every other by more metal girders at regular intervals.

The tower development was a bold extension of this principle up to a height of 300 meters - like the symbolic figure of 1000 feet. On September 18 1884 Eiffel registered an obvious for a replacement configuration allowing the development of metal supports and pylons capable of exceeding a height of 300 meters.

In order to form the development more acceptable to popular opinion, Nouguier and Koechlin commissioned the architect Stephen Sauvestre to figure on the project's presence.

Arc de Triomphe

Arc de Triomphe, fully Arc de Triomphe de lEtoile, the massive arch in Paris, France, one among the world’s best-known commemorative monuments. It stands at the center of the Place Charles de Gaulle (formerly called the Place de l’Étoile), the western terminus of the avenue des Champs-Élysées; just over 1.2 miles (2 km) away, at the eastern terminus, is that the Place de la Concorde. Napoleon commissioned the arch in 1806—after his great victory at the Battle of Austerlitz (1805)—to celebrate the military achievements of the French armies. The arch, planned by Jean-François-Therese Chalgrin, is 164 feet (50 meters) high and 148 feet (45 meters) wide. It sits during a circular plaza from which 12 grand avenues radiate, forming a star (etoile).

Construction of the arch began in 1806, on Assumption, Napoleon’s birthday. Little quite the inspiration had been completed by the time of his marriage to the Austrian archduchess Marie-Louise in 1810, so, in honour of her ceremonial entry into Paris, a full-scale depiction of the finished design, created from wood and painted canvas, was erected at the location. That gave Chalgrin the chance to ascertain his design in situ on the location, and he made some small amendments thereto . At the time of his death in 1811, only alittle portion of the structure had been completed, and work slowed further after Napoleon’s abdication as emperor and therefore the Bourbon Restoration (1814). Thus, little more was accomplished until the resumption of labor was ordered in 1823 by King Louis XVIII, who was motivated by the success of the French invasion of Spain that returned King Ferdinand VII’s power as absolute emperor. The critical structure of the memorial was finished by 1831 work was completed in 1836, during the reign of King Louis-Philippe, who opened it officially on July 29.

Pont Neuf over the Seine River

The three main parts of historic Paris are defined as the Seine. At its centre is that the Île de la Cité, which is that the seat of spiritual and temporal authority (the word cité connotes the nucleus of the traditional city). The Seine’s Left Bank (Rive Gauche) has traditionally been the seat of intellectual life, and its Right Bank (Rive Droite) contains the guts of the city’s economic life, but the distinctions became blurred in recent decades. The fusion of of these functions at the centre of France and, later, at the centre of an empire, resulted during a tremendously vital environment. During this environment, however, the expressive and rational climate that was created by contending powers often set the stage for nice violence in both the social and political arenas-the years 1358, 1382, 1588, 1648, 1789, 1830, 1848, and 1871 being famous for such events.

In its centuries of growth Paris has for the foremost part retained the circular shape of the first city. Its boundaries have spread outward to engulf the encompassing towns (bourgs), usually built around monasteries or churches and sometimes the location of a market. From the mid-14th to the mid-16th century, the city’s growth was mainly eastward; since then it's been westward. It comprises 20 arrondissements, each of which has its own mayor, town hall, and particular features. The numbering begins within the heart of Paris and continues within the spiraling shape of a snail shell, ending to the Far East . Parisians ask the arrondissements by number because the first (premier), second (deuxieme), third (troisième), and so on. Adaptation to the issues of urbanization—such as immigration, housing, social infrastructure, public utilities, suburban development, and zoning—has produced the vast urban agglomeration.

Notre-Dame de Paris

At the eastern end of the Île de la Cité is that the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, which is situated on a spot that Parisians have always reserved for the practice of spiritual rites. The Gallo-Roman boatmen of the cité erected their altar to Jupiter there (it is now within the city’s Museum of the center Ages), and, when Christianity was established, a church was built on the temple site. The reputed first bishop of Paris, St. Denis, became its defender . The red within the colours of Paris represents the blood of this martyr, who, in popular legend, after decapitation, picked up his head and walked.

When Maurice de Sully became bishop in 1159, he decided to exchange the decrepit cathedral of Saint-Étienne and therefore the 6th-century Notre-Dame with a church within the new Gothic style. the design was conceived in France, and a replacement structural development, the arc-boutant , which added to the sweetness of the outside and permitted interior columns to soar to new heights, was introduced within the building of Notre-Dame. Construction began in 1163 and continued until 1345.

After being damaged during the French Revolution, the church was sold at mart to a building-materials merchant. Napoleon came to power in time to end the sale, and he ordered that the organization be redecorated for his coronation as emperor in 1804. King Louis-Philippe later introduced restoration of the neglected church. The architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc worked from 1845 to 1864 to revive the monument.