Arrondissements of Paris

The twenty arrondissements 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)".

Population density map of Paris in 2012.

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).[3] 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, Jean-Frédéric Possoz, devised the idea of a numbering the arrondissements in a spiral pattern beginning with the first centered on the imperial palaces, which put Passy in the sixteenth.[4]

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.

Both a city and a département (French national administrative subdivision), Paris has since 1982 and the PLM law (Paris Lyon Marseille law) both a city council and 20 arrondissement councils. 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 the municipal council (conseil municipal) but with very few powers.[5] Its members are elected at municipal elections in the same way as in municipalities with more than 3,500 inhabitants. The arrondissement council is made up of 2/3 arrondissement councilors and 1/3 of city councilors, elected in the arrondissement but who also sit on the Paris city council. At its first meeting after the elections, each arrondissement council elects its mayor.[5]

• 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.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

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