History of Paris

Historical knowledge of Paris goes back to the time of Julius Caesar in the first century B.C. The community on the Île de la Cité, occupied by a Gallic tribe called the Parisii, was known to the invading Romans as Lutetia. As a Roman trading center, it came to be known as Paris. In the late fifth century it fell to the Franks, whose chieftain Clovis made it his capital in 508. Under Charlemagne (reigned 771–814) the seat of government was moved to Aachen, and Paris declined in importance. It was raided repeatedly by Norsemen during the 9th and 10th centuries.

In 987 Hugh Capet, count of Paris, became king of France, and made Paris the capital city. As the monarchy grew stronger, Paris became the center of all activity, political, religious, and cultural. Construction of Notre Dame cathedral began in 1163, the University of Paris was chartered in 1200, and the original Louvre palace was built about 1204. By 1300 Paris was the largest city in the world, with a population estimated between 200,000 and 300,000.

During the Hundred Years' War Henry VI of England was crowned king of France in Paris, and occupied the city, 1431–46. When Henry of Navarre, a Huguenot (Protestant) leader, assumed the French crown as Henry IV in 1593, he declared Paris “well worth a mass,” and became a Catholic in order to win the capital. Paris became an archbishopric in 1623.

In World War I German forces penetrated to within 20 miles (32 km) of Paris. Reserve troops, rushed to the battlefront in taxicabs, helped save the city. In World War II Paris was declared an open city, to prevent bombing. German forces took Paris in 1940, and it was the center of German occupation until its liberation in 1944.

A long-range building program was undertaken in the 1960's to modernize Paris and relieve shortages of housing and office space. In 1977 a mayor of Paris was elected for the first time in more than a century. (The post, abolished in 1871, had been reestablished-in 1976.) During 1981–95 President François Mitterrand commissioned several major public-works projects in and around the city. Among these projects were a new national library, a new opera house, and a new entrance to the Louvre.

Population: 2,152,329 (city); 9,319,367 (metropolitan area).