The city ofParis is divided into twenty arrondissements municipaux, administrative districts, more simply referred to as arrondissements. These are not to be confused with departmental arrondissements, which subdivide the 100 French départements. The word "arrondissement", when applied to Paris, refers almost always to the municipal arrondissements listed below. The number of the arrondissement is indicated by the last two digits in most Parisian postal codes.
Description
The twenty arrondissements are arranged in the form of a clockwisespiral, starting from the middle of the city, with the first on the Right 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 VIIe arrondissement while Gare de l'Est is in the Xe 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 ".
Arrondissements
Notes: 1. With the Bois de Vincennes 2. Without the Bois de Vincennes 3. With the Bois de Boulogne 4. Without the Bois de Boulogne 5. 2005 is the year of the most recent official estimate; population of these arrondissements may still be growing Each arrondissement is subdivided administratively into four quartiers. Paris thus has eighty quartiers administratifs, each containing a police station. For a table giving the names of the eighty quartiers, see Quarters of Paris.
History
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 SeineBaron 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. 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. In historical records, when it is important to distinguish between two systems, the original arrondissements are indicated by adding the term ancienne, for example, 2ème ancienne or 7ème anc. Both a city and a département, Paris has since 1982 and the PLM 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 are similar in operation to the municipal council but with very few powers. 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.
