Paris
Name
Paris
Variant Names
Parigi
Province/County/State
Île-de-France (region (administrative division))
Nations
France (nation)
Descriptive Note Text
Paris is the city and capital of France, located in the north-central part of the country. It was founded more than 2,000 years ago on an island in the Seine River. The City of Paris itself covers an area of 41 square miles (105 square kilometers). It occupies a central position in the productive agricultural region known as the Paris Basin. It is the nation's most important center of commerce and culture. It was captured and fortified by the Romans in 52 BCE and ruled by various other groups such as the Clovis, Northmen, English, and Germans (Getty TGN). France's late 19th-century Universal Expositions made Paris an increasingly important centre of technology, trade, and tourism. Its most famous were the 1889 Exposition Universelle to which Paris owes its "temporary" display of architectural engineering progress, the Eiffel Tower, a structure that remained the world's tallest building until 1930; the 1900 Universal Exposition saw the opening of the first Paris Métro line.
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