15 Fun Facts about Paris – The City of Lights

Paris has been the capital of France since 987 AD and is located along the Seine River in northern central France. Here are 15 fun facts about Paris – the City of Lights.

Facts about Paris:

1. Paris has more dogs than children. It is estimated that nearly half a million canines inhabit the city.
2. Paris is not the largest French-speaking city in the world. Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa, has over 11 million people who speak French, beating about Paris by about 200,000 speakers.
3. There are 38 cities called “Paris” across the world. In the United States, Ukraine, Sweden, Russia and many other places you can find Paris.
4. The Pont Neuf is the oldest bridge in Paris. Built in 1604, its name means “New Bridge”.
5. Paris has more libraries than another other city in the world. The city has 830 of them in total.
6. Before the fire, the most visited monument in Paris was the Notre-Dame cathedral – not the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower. Notre-Dame saw more that 13 million visitors per year. The tenor bell of Notre-Dame’s south bell tower is named Emmanuel and weighs over 13 tons. In 2019, Notre-Dame cathedral went up in flames but its restoration continues.
7. The Eiffel Tower was intended to be only a temporary installation. Built for the 1889 World Fair, the tower was supposed to last only 20 years before being demolished.
8. The names of 72 mathematicians, engineers, scientists are engraved on the Eiffel Tower – all of who participated in creating the tower.
9. The 20 arrondissements in Paris start at the heart of the city and are arranged in the form of a clockwise spiral. These districts continue in numerical order in a spiral fashion from 1 to 20.
10. In 2005 Tom Cruise was explicitly banned from becoming an honorary citizen of Paris. In large part because of his membership in the Church of Scientology.
11. The famous love-locks bridge no longer exists. The Pont des Arts bridge is still in Paris, but locks were removed in 2015. Over one millions locks had been placed, weighing over 45 tons. The locks were considered a health hazard as they were slowly damaging the pedestrian bridge.
12. For 70 years the rent and upkeep was paid on a locked and unoccupied flat in Paris. When the apartment was opened in 2010, a painting by Italian artist Giovanni Boldini was found and eventually sold at auction for over 2 million Euro.
13. The names of 128 battles of the first French Republic and Napoleon’s Empire are written under the Arc de Triomphe. The white walls under the vault of the Arc de Triomphe list the names of French generals and the major battles of the Napoleonic Wars.
14. The Paris Metro travels approximately 600,000 miles a day – the equivalent of 10 times around the earth. The metro over 115 years old – second oldest to London’s tube system. Almost any building in Paris is within 500m of a metro station.
15. More than 30 million tourists visit the Paris region each year. 10 Million of them visit the Lourve.

Liked these facts about Paris? Check out these 15 facts about Banksy.

Also, go ahead and share some facts about Paris that we might have missed in the comments section below.