Paris travel guide

Top 10 sights in Paris

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

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   1

   Eiffel Tower

   A lattice tower of iron built for the 1889 world's fair and meant to come down twenty years later; its usefulness as a radio mast saved it. It stands about three hundred and thirty metres to the tip and is repainted every seven years, by hand.

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2. 

   2© Benh LIEU SONG · CC BY 2.5

   Louvre Museum

   The largest art museum in the world, in the palace the French kings left for Versailles, opened to the public in 1793. Some thirty-five thousand works are on show; Pei's glass pyramid has covered the entrance since 1989.

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   3© P e z i · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Notre-Dame de Paris

   A cathedral begun in 1163 on the Île de la Cité and finished by about 1345. Fire took the roof and spire in April 2019; five years of restoration returned the stone to a colour Paris had not seen since the eighteenth century, and it reopened in December 2024.

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4. 

   4© Cheng-en Cheng from Taichung City, Taiwan · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Musée d'Orsay

   A railway station of 1900 that was too short for modern trains and became, in 1986, the museum of the French nineteenth century. It holds the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist painting anywhere, behind the old station clock.

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5. 

   5© ToucanWings · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Palace of Versailles

   The hunting lodge that Louis XIV turned into the seat of government in 1682, moving the whole court out of Paris to control it. The Hall of Mirrors runs seventy-three metres; the gardens by Le Nôtre take longer to walk than the palace does to see.

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   6

   Bastille

   A fortress begun in 1370 that became a state prison and, on 14 July 1789, the target of a crowd that found seven prisoners inside. It was pulled down within months; its outline is marked in the paving of the square.

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7. 

   7© Jiuguang Wang · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Arc de Triomphe

   A triumphal arch fifty metres high, ordered by Napoleon in 1806 after Austerlitz and finished in 1836, long after his death. The tomb of the unknown soldier lies beneath it and its flame is rekindled at half past six every evening.

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8. 

   8

   Élysée Palace

   A townhouse of 1722 that has been the residence of French presidents since 1848. The cabinet meets here on Wednesdays; the building opens to the public only on heritage weekend, when the queue starts before dawn.

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   9© Navin75 · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Montmartre

   The highest ground in Paris at a hundred and thirty metres, a village of vineyards and windmills until the city swallowed it in 1860. Cheap rent then drew Renoir, Picasso and Utrillo; one vineyard is still worked on the north slope.

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10. 

    10© Zairon · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Centre Georges Pompidou

    A museum turned inside out by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers in 1977, its pipes and escalators hung on the outside in colour code so that the floors inside could be left clear. It holds the largest modern art collection in Europe and closed in 2025 for a long renovation.

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1. 

   1© Camille Gévaudan · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Panthéon

   A church to Sainte-Geneviève finished in 1790 and turned into a mausoleum by the Revolution. Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, Zola and Marie Curie lie in the crypt; under the dome, a copy of Foucault's pendulum still demonstrates the earth's rotation.

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   2© Tonchino · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Sacré-Cœur

   A white basilica begun in 1875 as penance for the defeat of 1870 and consecrated only in 1919. Its stone secretes chalk in rain, which is why it never darkens; the steps below are the city's best free viewpoint.

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3. 

   3© Uoaei1 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Sainte Chapelle

   A chapel built between 1238 and 1248 by Louis IX to hold the Crown of Thorns, which had cost him more than the building did. Its upper floor is fifteen metres of stained glass on almost no wall, and needs a clear afternoon.

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   4© Cristian Bortes from Cluj-Napoca, Romania · CC BY 2.0

   place de la Concorde

   The largest square in Paris, laid out in 1755 and renamed after the Revolution guillotined Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette on it. The obelisk at its centre is three thousand three hundred years old and was given by Egypt in 1836.

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   5

   Tuileries Palace

   A palace begun in 1564 for Catherine de' Medici, which became the royal residence after the crowd brought Louis XVI back from Versailles in 1789. The Commune burned it in 1871 and it was demolished; only the garden is left.

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6. 

   6© Chabe01 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Basilica of Saint-Denis

   The abbey church where Gothic architecture began — Abbot Suger's choir of 1144 was the first to combine pointed arch, rib vault and wall of glass. Forty-three French kings are buried here, though revolutionaries emptied the tombs in 1793.

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   7© User:Thbz · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Montparnasse Tower

   An office tower of two hundred and ten metres finished in 1973, so disliked that the city banned tall buildings in the centre soon afterwards. The terrace on its roof therefore gives the one view of Paris without it in the frame.

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   8© Des Racines et des Ailes · CC BY 3.0

   place Vendôme

   An octagonal square north of the Tuileries, laid out from 1699 behind Jules Hardouin-Mansart's uniform facades. Napoleon raised the column at its centre from cannon captured at Austerlitz; the Commune pulled it down in 1871 and it went straight back up. Jewellers and the Ritz hold the arcades now.

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   9

   Tuileries Garden

   A garden laid out in 1564 and redesigned by Le Nôtre a century later, the first in Paris opened to the public. The movable green chairs around its ponds are a civic institution; the Orangerie at the far end holds Monet's water lilies.

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    10

    Palais-Royal

    A palace built for Cardinal Richelieu in 1633 and left to the crown, its garden enclosed by arcades of shops. In the courtyard stand Daniel Buren's black and white columns, installed in 1986 over the objections of most of the country.

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