Arrondissements of Paris

The twenty arrondissements (French: "rounding") are arranged in the form of a clockwise spiral (often likened to a snail shell),[2] starting from the middle of the city, with the first on the Right Bank (north bank) of the Seine.

In French, notably on street signs, the number is often given in Roman numerals. For example, the Eiffel Tower belongs to the VII^e arrondissement while Gare de l'Est is in the X^e arrondissement. In daily speech, people use only the ordinal number corresponding to the arrondissement, e.g. "Elle habite dans le sixième", "She lives in the 6th (arrondissement)".

Due to suburbanization, the population of Paris has gradually shifted outward, with only two arrondissements still growing.

Uniquely among French cities, Paris is both a municipality (commune) and a department (département). Under the PLM Law (Loi PLM) of 1982, which redefined the governance of Paris, Lyon, and Marseille (hence the PLM acronym), there are both a city council called the Council of Paris and 20 arrondissement councils in Paris. The PLM Law also set limits to the prerogatives of the mayor of Paris, who has to deal with the powers granted to the prefect of police on security issues.

The 20 arrondissement councils (conseils d'arrondissement) are similar in operation to a municipal council (conseil municipal) but with very few powers.[3] Its members are elected at municipal elections in the same way as in municipalities with more than 3,500 inhabitants. Each arrondissement council is made up of 2/3 members elected specifically as arrondissement councillors, while Council of Paris members representing the arrondissement also sit ex officio on their local arrondissement council. For example, the council of the 19th arrondissement has 42 members, of which 28 are conseillers d'arrondissement who only sit on the arrondissement council, while 14 are conseillers de Paris who also sit on the city council. At its first meeting after the elections, each arrondissement council elects its mayor.[3]

Each arrondissement is subdivided administratively into four quartiers. Paris thus has 80 quartiers administratifs, each containing a police station. For a table giving the names of the eighty quartiers, see Quarters of Paris.

Coat of arms	Arrondissement (R for Right Bank, L for Left Bank)	Name	Area (km2)	Population (2017 estimate)	Density (2017) (inhabitants per km2)	Peak of population	Mayor (2020–2026)
	1st (Ier) R Administratively part of Paris Centre	Louvre	5.59 km2 (2.16 sq mi)	100,196	17,924	before 1861	Ariel Weil (PS)
	2nd (IIe) R Administratively part of Paris Centre	Bourse				before 1861
	3rd (IIIe) R Administratively part of Paris Centre	Temple				before 1861
	4th (IVe) R Administratively part of Paris Centre	Hôtel-de-Ville				before 1861
	5th (Ve) L	Panthéon	2.541 km2 (0.981 sq mi)	59,631	23,477	1911	Florence Berthout (DVD)
	6th (VIe) L	Luxembourg	2.154 km2 (0.832 sq mi)	41,976	19,524	1911	Jean-Pierre Lecoq (LR)
	7th (VIIe) L	Palais-Bourbon	4.088 km2 (1.578 sq mi)	52,193	12,761	1926	Rachida Dati (LR)
	8th (VIIIe) R	Élysée	3.881 km2 (1.498 sq mi)	37,368	9,631	1891	Jeanne d'Hauteserre (LR)
	9th (IXe) R	Opéra	2.179 km2 (0.841 sq mi)	60,071	27,556	1901	Delphine Bürkli (DVD)
	10th (Xe) R	Entrepôt	2.892 km2 (1.117 sq mi)	90,836	31,431	1881	Alexandra Cordebard (PS)
	11th (XIe) R	Popincourt	3.666 km2 (1.415 sq mi)	147,470	40,183	1911	François Vauglin (PS)
	12th (XIIe) R	Reuilly	16.324 km2 (6.303 sq mi)¹ 6.377 km2 (2.462 sq mi)²	141,287	8,657¹ 21,729²	1962	Emmanuelle Pierre-Marie (EELV)
	13th (XIIIe) L	Gobelins	7.146 km2 (2.759 sq mi)	183,399	25,650	20055	Jérôme Coumet (PS)
	14th (XIVe) L	Observatoire	5.621 km2 (2.170 sq mi)	136,941	24,280	1954	Carine Petit (Gt.s)
	15th (XVe) L	Vaugirard	8.502 km2 (3.283 sq mi)	235,178	27,733	1962	Philippe Goujon (LR)
	16th (XVIe) R	Passy	16.305 km2 (6.295 sq mi)³ 7.846 km2 (3.029 sq mi)4	149,500	9,169³ 19,0544	1962	Francis Szpiner (LR)
	17th (XVIIe) R	Batignolles-Monceau	5.669 km2 (2.189 sq mi)	168,737	29,760	1954	Geoffroy Boulard (LR)
	18th (XVIIIe) R	Butte-Montmartre	6.005 km2 (2.319 sq mi)	196,131	32,634	1931	Éric Lejoindre (PS)
	19th (XIXe) R	Buttes-Chaumont	6.786 km2 (2.620 sq mi)	188,066	27,697	20055	François Dagnaud (PS)
	20th (XXe) R	Ménilmontant	5.984 km2 (2.310 sq mi)	191,800	32,052	1936	Éric Pliez (DVG)

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

Map showing the twelve original arrondissements as of 1795. The surrounding grey area shows the size of Paris after 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).[4] The previous twelve arrondissements were done away with, and twenty new arrondissements were created. In historical records, when it is necessary to distinguish between the two systems, the original arrondissements are indicated by adding the term ancienne ("former" or "old"), for example, 2ème ancienne or 7ème anc.

Before the reorganization, non-married couples who lived together were said to have "married at the town hall of the 13th arrondissement" ("se marier à la mairie du 13e arrondissement"), as a jocular reference to there being no 13th. When Haussmann released his plan for the new boundaries and numbering system, residents of Passy objected because it placed them in the new 13th arrondissement. The mayor of Passy, Jean-Frédéric Possoz, devised the idea of a numbering the arrondissements in a spiral pattern beginning on the Right Bank, which put Passy in the 16th. This system turned the Louvre area, which contained the Tuileries Palace and other imperial palaces, into the 1st. The Gobelins area would become the 13th instead.[5]

In early 2016, mayor Anne Hidalgo proposed that the first four arrondissements should have their administrations merged, and the Council of Paris approved this on 15 February. The four have a combined population of about 100,000, with the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 3rd arrondissements in that order being the four smallest in Paris. The matter was taken up in the National Assembly in August 2016, and approved in February 2017. In a postal referendum from 8 to 14 October 2018, the town hall of the 3rd arrondissement was chosen to house the new shared administration, and the name "Paris Centre" was chosen for the sector. The reform was implemented on 29 June 2020, the day after the second round of the 2020 Paris municipal election, with the four arrondissements now sharing a mayor and a district council. The four arrondissements continue to exist, but are no longer used as administrative and electoral sectors.[6][7]

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

• Carmona, Michel (2002). Haussmann: His Life and Times and the Making of Modern Paris. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. p. 516. ISBN 9781566634274.

• Official Paris website
• Website showing location, numbering conventions, and general info for arrondissements