Paris is a city in north central France, the capital and largest city of the country.

Paris is world-famous for its beauty and charm, and for its long history as a center of learning and knowledge. Parisians call their city the City of Light.

People from around the world flock to the city to view its impressive array of monuments and museums, savor its cuisine, and relax in its sidewalk cafes and nightclubs.

Paris is the political, cultural, and economic center of France as well as one of the most vibrant metropolises in the world. About 15 percent of France’s inhabitants live in the Paris metropolitan area.

Paris is named after the Parisii, a Celtic people who settled on the city’s central island — the Île de la Cité — in the 3rd century BC. The city has since spread north and south of the Seine.

Roughly circular in shape, Paris proper has an area of 105 sq km (41 sq mi). It is bounded by a 35 km- (22 mi-) long ring road called the Boulevard Périphérique.

Paris proper constitutes one of eight départements of the Île-de-France region.

The Paris metropolitan area stretches over the three adjacent départements, which are known as the inner suburbs (la petite couronne), and extends into the fringes of the four larger, surrounding départements, known as the outer suburbs (la grande couronne).

The city is divided into 20 political units called arrondissements. The numbering of the arrondissements spirals outward like a snail shell, starting from the western part of the Île de la Cité, then moving clockwise all the way to the 20th arrondissement in eastern Paris.

The Seine enters Paris in the southeast, loops north, and then curves to the southwest before leaving the city. Many of the city’s greatest monuments lie on the banks of the Seine, which were designated a World Heritage Site in 1992 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).