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Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city of France. Located on the river Seine in the country's north, it is a major cultural and political centre of Europe and the world's most visited city. The area's first inhabitants, a Celtic tribe named the "Parisii" give Paris its name. Its eponym, "the City of Lights" (la Ville Lumière), dates from 1828 when it became the first city in Europe to light its main boulevards with gas street lamps along its Champs-Élysées. The city of Paris is also widely referred to as the "most romantic city in the world." As a cultural and political centre for Europe since the early Middle Ages, Paris preserves many vestiges of its past. While hosting numerous art galleries, museums and theatres, it has grown into a significant centre of international trade with ever-growing modern business districts, including La Défense, the de facto city centre built for the purpose. In addition to the head offices of nearly half of all France's companies and the offices of many major international firms, Paris hosts the headquarters of many international trade and social organisations, including the OECD and UNESCO. The city of Paris proper has 2.1 million inhabitants , but its centre of influence extends to cover a "Greater Paris" metropolitan area that has a population of 11.1 million , over one sixth of the French population. Paris is the third largest metropolitan area in Europe (after Moscow and London), and approximately the 22nd most populous metropolitan area in the world. Paris is also the centre of an economic network that, within the limits of its Île-de-France région (of which it is also the capital), with a GDP of nearly €450 billion , is alone the producer of over one quarter of France's wealth. Because of its financial, business, political, and tourism activities, Paris today is one of the world's major transport destinations. Along with New York, London and Tokyo, it is often listed as one of the four major global cities.
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Name of Paris and its Inhabitants

Paris is pronounced (RP) or in English, and Image:ltspkr.png in French. The original Latin name of Paris was Lutetia (), or Lutetia Parisiorum, known in French as Lutèce (). Lutetia was later dropped in favor of only Paris, based on the name of the Gallic Parisi tribe, whose name perhaps comes from the Celtic Gallic word parios, meaning "caldron", but this is not certain. Traditionally, Paris was known as Paname () in French slang, but this vulgar appellation is gradually losing currency. (.) The inhabitants of Paris are known as Parisians in English, as Parisiens (Image:ltspkr.png) in French. The pejorative term Parigot (Image:ltspkr.png) is sometimes used in French slang. Locally, inhabitants of the Paris suburbs are known as banlieusards (Image:ltspkr.png). Inhabitants of the whole Paris metropolitan area are known as Franciliens (Image:ltspkr.png), i.e. from Île-de-France.

Geography

Coordinates

Paris is located at (48.866667, 2.333056). The city straddles a north-bending arc of the river Seine. This waterway is dotted with a few islands along its path through the city, and the largest and most central of these, the Île de la Cité, is the Capital's heart and origin.

Area

The city (commune) of Paris proper has an area of 105.398 km² (40.69 mi², or 26,044 acres). Excluding the outlying parks of Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes, the actual area of the city is only 86.928 km² (33.56 mi², or 21,480 acres), being in the form of an almost regular oval, with a circumference of 35.5 km (22 miles). This oval extends 9.5 km (6 miles) from north to south, and 11 km (7 miles) from east to west. circumference This is not a very large area, and in fact the commune of Paris is only the 113th largest commune of France (out of 36,782 communes). By comparison, Greater London has an area of 1,572 km² (607 mi²), and New York City has an area of 786 km² (303 mi²). This peculiar fact arises because, unlike other large western cities such as New York, London, or Berlin, whose territories were enlarged in the 20th century, the borders of Paris have not been changed since 1860 when Napoleon III and the prefect Haussmann annexed the then suburban communes surrounding Paris, such as Montmartre and Auteuil, more than doubling the the city's area to 78 km² (30.1 mi²), and creating the 20 arrondissements of Paris. Since 1860, the limits of Paris have only marginally changed, reaching the 86.9 km² figure indicated above. In 1929, the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes were officially incorporated into the city of Paris. Thus, the Brooklyn, Greenwich, or Charlottenburg of Paris are still outside the city of Paris proper, and it can be more accurately compared to the borough of Manhattan (59.5 km²/23 mi²) or to Inner London (319 km²/123 mi²). Even the largest business and financial district of Paris, known as La Défense, is outside the city boundary. The urban area (unité urbaine) of Paris, i.e. the contiguous built-up area, extends past the administrative city limits to cover 2,723 km² (1,051.4 mi²) (INSEE 1999), or an area about 26 times larger than the city itself. The metropolitan area (aire urbaine) of Paris, i.e. the built-up area plus the commuter belt, reaches in part beyond the surrounding Île-de-France administative région to cover 14,518 km² (5,605.5 mi²) (INSEE 1999), or an area 138 times larger than the city of Paris. région]]

Altitude

The altitude of Paris varies, with several prominent hills, of which the highest is Montmartre at 130m about sea level. The highest elevation in the urban area of Paris is in the Forest of Montmorency (Val-d'Oise département), 19.5 km. (12 miles) north-northwest of the center of Paris as the crow flies, at 195 metres (640 ft) above sea-level.

Temperatures

The lowest temperature recorded in central Paris (since 1873) was –23.9 °C (–11.0 °F) and –25.6 °C (–14.1 °F) in the southeastern suburb of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés on December 10, 1879 . The highest temperature was recorded on July 28, 1947 when the temperature in central Paris (Parc Montsouris) reached 40.4 °C (104.7 °F). During the European heat wave of 2003, which caused the death of many elderly people in France, the temperature in central Paris reached 38.1 °C (100.6 °F) (Parc Montsouris) and 40.2 °C (104.4 °F) at Le Bourget Airport in the northern suburbs. A record high night-time minimum of 25.5 °C (77.9 °F) in Parc Montsouris was set on August 11 and August 12, 2003.

History

Paris was occupied by a Gallic tribe until the Romans arrived in 52 BC. The invaders referred to the previous occupants as the Parisii, but called their new city Lutetia, meaning "marshy place". About 50 years later the city had spread to the left bank of the Seine, now known as the Latin Quarter (Le Quartier latin), and was renamed "Paris". Roman rule had ceased by 508, when Clovis the Frank made the city the capital of the Merovingian dynasty of the Franks. In 845, Paris was sacked by Viking raiders, probably under Ragnar Lodbrok, who collected a huge ransom in exchange for leaving. Thereafter the weakness of the late Carolingian kings of France led to the gradual rise in power of the Counts of Paris; Odo, Count of Paris was elected king of France by feudal lords while Charles III was also claiming the throne. Finally, in 987 Hugh Capet, count of Paris, was elected king of France by the great feudal lords after the last Carolingian king died. Hugh Capet, 1789]] In the 12th and 13th centuries the city grew strongly. Main thoroughfares were paved, the first Louvre was built as a fortress, and several churches, including the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, were constructed or begun. Several schools on the Left Bank were grouped together into the Sorbonne, which counts Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas among its early scholars. In the Middle Ages, Paris prospered as a trading and intellectual nucleus, interrupted temporarily when the Black Death struck in the 14th century, and again in the 15th century when urban revolts drove the royal court to abandon the city for almost 100 years. In the 18th century, the royal residence was moved from Paris to nearby Versailles. The French Revolution began with the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. From the establishment of the French Second Empire in 1852 until 1914, Paris experienced the largest development in its history. The famous Parisian Haussmann Style dates back to this period, during which much of the Paris known today was planned and constructed. For the World's Fair of 1889 which commemorated the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution, the Eiffel Tower was built, the best-known landmark in Paris and tallest structure in the world until 1930. The large scale display of electricity and light bulbs at the world's fairs of 1889 and 1900, which was a first in the world, earned Paris the nickname "City of Lights". During World War I, Paris was at the forefront of the war effort, having been spared invasion by the German Army due to the French and English victory at the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. In the Interwar period, Paris was famed for its cultural and artistic life, as well as its nightlife. From Russian exiled artists fleeing the Bolsheviks (such as composer Igor Stravinsky), to Spanish painters (such as Picasso or Dalí), to US writers (such as Hemingway), Paris became a melting pot of artists from all around the world. In June 1940, five weeks after the start of the German attack on France, a partially-evauated Paris fell to German occupation forces, who remained there until late August 1944. Paris was fortunate to be the one of the few large cities in Europe that suffered almost no destruction from the war, preserving its 19th century architecture intact. In the post-war period, Paris experienced its largest development since the end of the Belle Époque in 1914. The suburbs around the city proper (commune) of Paris began to expand considerably, with the construction of large social estates known as cités and the beginning of the business district La Défense. In the late 1960s, the Tour Montparnasse, a large, modern skyscraper, was built just south of the Jardin du Luxembourg. Its controversial height and location sparked immediate changes in zoning and administrative rules that now restrict skyscrapers to La Défense. Since the mid-1980s, there has been periodic unrest, sometimes degenerating into riots, in the poor immigrant neighbourhoods of the outer suburbs of Paris, especially in the cités, which have gradually become ghettos. In late 2005 a wave of riots erupted in the Paris suburbs, with thousands of cars and tens of public buildings burnt.

Demographics

wave of riots erupted in the Paris suburbs.]]

Density

At the 1999 French census the population density in the city of Paris was 20,164 inh. per km² (52,225 inh. per sq. mile). Excluding the outlying parks of Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes, the density in the city was actually 24,448 inh. per km² (63,321 inh. per sq. mile). As a matter of comparison, the density in Manhattan at the 2000 US census was 25,846 inh. per km² (66,940 inh. per sq. mile), and the density in Inner London at the 2001 UK census was 8,663 inh. per km² (22,438 inh. per sq. mile). The population density in the city of Paris is very high compared to those of most western cities, which are rarely as crowded as Paris (except for Manhattan). The density in Paris is comparable to the densities met within Asian cities. In many western cities, people have left the city center in the 20th century to relocate to the distant suburbs, leaving the city center as a business district dead at night. Although the city of Paris has also experienced a decline in population since the 1920s, it has nonetheless seen fewer inhabitants relocating to the suburbs than has occurred in other western cities. More precisely, people relocating to the suburbs were for the most part replaced by new people attracted to an urban lifestyle, and buildings were not converted into offices as systematically as has happened elsewhere, such as in London where the inhabitants have left the city center since the Second World War, and the density of Inner London is now much lower than that of Paris. This is most striking in the medieval heart of both metropolises: the City of London and the four first arrondissements of Paris were the medieval heart of each metropolis, with densities reaching 75,000 to 100,000 inh. per km² before the Industrial Revolution. Today, the City of London is almost empty, with a population density of only 2,478 inh. per km² (6,417 inh. per sq. mile) in 2001, whereas the four first arrondissements of Paris still have a density of 18,139 inh. per km² (46,979 inh. per sq. mile) in 1999, seven times more dense than in the City of London. Today, the most crowded arrondissement in the city of Paris is the 11th arrondissement, with a density reaching 40,672 inh. per km² (105,339 inh. per sq. mile) in 1999. Some neighborhoods in the east of this arrondissement are known to have densities of almost 100,000 inh. per km² (260,000 inh. per sq. mile).

Population Growth

At the 1999 census, the population of the city of Paris (excluding suburbs) was 2,125,246. The population of the metropolitan area of Paris was 11,174,743. Historically, the population of the city of Paris peaked in 1921, when it reached 2.9 million. However, there has been since then a movement toward living in suburbs, as well as the gentrification of many areas of inner Paris, and the use of available space for offices rather than dwellings, although this phenomenon was not as massive as happened in London or in American cities. These tendencies are controversial, and the current city administration is trying to reverse them. As a matter of fact, as of February 2004 estimates, the population of the city reached 2,142,800 inhabitants, increasing for the first time since 1954. As for the metropolitan area, it reached approximately 11.5 million inhabitants in 2004, growing twice as fast in the 2000s as it did in the 1990s. The metropolitan area of Paris has been in continuous expansion since the end of the French Wars of Religion at the end of the 16th century (with only brief setbacks during the French Revolution and World War II). As can be seen from the figures, only 18.5% of the inhabitants of the metropolitan area of Paris live inside the city of Paris, while 81.5% live in the suburbs. Visitors to Paris, who mostly stay inside the city, are usually not aware that 81.5% of "Parisians" actually live outside of the city itself, in its very extended suburbs. A majority of Parisians also work outside of the city proper: at the 1999 census, there were 5,089,179 jobs in the metropolitan area of Paris, 32.5% of which were located in the city of Paris proper, while 67.5% were located outside of the city. These peculiar facts are due to the conservativeness of French administrative limits (see Geography section above). For comparisons, in the metropolitan area of London, approximately 60% of people live inside Greater London proper (2001 census), while in the New York-Newark-Bridgeport metropolitan area, 37.8% of people live inside New York City (2000 census). Even in the Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County metropolitan area, 22.6% of people live inside the city of Los Angeles proper. Paris can be more rightly compared to the San Francisco Bay Area, where only 11% of inhabitants live inside the city of San Francisco proper. However, unlike in the San Francisco Bay Area, there is no city inside the metropolitan area of Paris that rivals Paris, the largest city (commune) after Paris being Boulogne-Billancourt, with only 108,300 inhabitants in 2004. :See also: Historical population tables

Muséification

As a result, a so-called "muséification" (museumification) of the city of Paris is feared. Already, all airports, the largest financial and business district (La Défense), the main food wholesale market (Rungis), major renowned schools (École Polytechnique, HEC, ESSEC, INSEAD, etc.), research laboratories (in Saclay or Évry), the largest sport stadium (Stade de France), and even some ministries (Ministry of Transportation) are now located outside of the city of Paris. Similarly, the National Archives of France are due to relocate to the northern suburbs before 2010. It is feared that the city of Paris is turning into a museum for tourists and Amélie nostalgists, while the real economic activity and 21st century development take place elsewhere in the metropolitan area. With some of the most stringent protection laws in the world, it is virtually impossible to build new buildings inside the city. Recent proposals by Paris' new mayor, Bertrand Delanoë to gather renowned architects to build skyscrapers on the outskirts of the city center, have been met with strong opposition on all sides. Delanoë wished to scrap the building height limit dating back to Haussmann in the 19th century, and build upwards to compensate for the lack of space on the ground, as was done in Manhattan. The project also aimed to revitalise Paris in the 21st century, rivaling world cities like Shanghai, or even London where city planners have started building aesthetically acclaimed skyscrapers inside the City. The probable failure of the project may be seen as another sign of the "muséification" of the city of Paris.

Immigration

The metropolitan area of Paris is one of the most multi-cultural in Europe. At the 1999 census, 19.4% of the total population of the metropolitan area were born outside of metropolitan France. As a comparison: at the 2001 UK census, 19.5% of the total population of the metropolitan area of London was born outside of the (metropolitan) United Kingdom, while at the 2000 US census 27.5% of the total population of the New York-Newark-Bridgeport metropolitan area was born outside of the United States (50 states), and 31.9% of the total population of the Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County metropolitan area was born outside of the United States (50 states). Still at the 1999 French census, 4.2% of the total population of the metropolitan area of Paris were recent migrants (i.e. people who were not living in France in 1990). The most recent immigrants to Paris come essentially from mainland China and from Africa.

Economy

. See main article for references concerning the figures cited here.

Size

Africa The metropolitan area of Paris is one of the engines of the global economy. In 2003 the GDP of the metropolitan area of Paris as calculated by INSEE and Eurostat was €448,933 million, or US$506.7 billion (at real exchange rates, not at PPP). If it were a country, the metropolitan area of Paris would be the 15th largest economy in the world (as of 2003), above Brazil (US$492.3 billion) and Russia (US$432.9 billion). Year in, year out, the metropolitan area of Paris accounts for about 29% of the total GDP of metropolitan France, although its population is only 18.7% of the total population of metropolitan France (as of 2004). In 2002, according to Eurostat, the GDP of the metropolitan area of Paris accounted alone for 4.5% of the total GDP of the European Union (of 25 members), although its population is only 2.45% of the total population of the EU25. Although in terms of population the Paris metropolitan area is only approximately the 20th largest metropolitan area in the world, its GDP is the sixth largest in the world after the metropolitan areas of Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, London and Osaka. At the 1999 census there were 5,089,170 persons employed in the metropolitan area of Paris, 31.5% of whom worked inside the city of Paris proper and 16% in the Hauts-de-Seine (92) département, home of the new La Défense business district, to the west of the city proper, while the remaining 52.5% worked in the suburbs.

Economic sectors

The economy of Paris is extremely diverse and has not yet adopted a specialization inside the global economy (unlike Los Angeles with the entertainment industry, or London with financial services). The tourism industry, for instance, employs only 3.6% of the total workforce of the metropolitan area (as of 1999) and is by no means a major component of the economy. The Paris economy is essentially a service economy. Its manufacturing base is still important, the Paris metropolitan area remaining one of the manufacturing powerhouses of Europe, but it is declining, while there is a clear shift of the Paris economy towards high value-added services, in particular services. Reflecting the diversity of the Paris economy, at the 1999 census 16.5% of the 5,089,170 persons employed in the metropolitan area worked in business services, 13.0% in commerce (retail and wholesale trade), 12.3% in manufacturing, 10.0% in public administrations and defense, 8.7% in health services, 8.2% in transportation and communications, 6.6% in education, and the remaining 24.7% in many other economic sectors. Among the manufacturing sector, the largest employers were the electronic and electrical industry (17.9% of the total manufacturing workforce in 1999) and the publishing and printing industry (14.0% of the total manufacturing workforce), the remaining 68.1% of the manufacturing workforce being distributed among many other industries.

Administration

printing Paris is divided into twenty arrondissements, numbered in a clockwise spiral outwards from the Ier arrondissement at the center of the city. Two parks on the edge of the city proper, Bois de Boulogne on the west and Bois de Vincennes on the east, belong to the 16th and 12th arrondissements respectively. Citizens of each arrondissement elect a local council, which in turn elects the mayor of the arrondissement. A selection of members from each arrondissement council form the Council of Paris, which itself has the dual function of being council for the Paris municipality and for Paris as a départment. The Council of Paris elects the mayor of Paris. mayor of Paris mayor of Paris has been the Mayor of Paris since March 18, 2001]] It must be noted that modern Paris had no Mayor before 1977. Paris in fact has yet to completely emerge from the "prefecture" administrative system created by Bonaparte in 1800; its laws are still governed by its State-appointed Prefecture of Police (as is its Fire Brigade) and has no municipal police force, although it does have its own traffic wardens. The city of Paris also has other jurisdictional titles: it is a commune and also a département. As a département, until 1968 it stretched beyond its city limits as a Département 75 (or Seine département) to include its immediate suburbs, but that year it was split into four: Paris proper (75) became a smaller département, and in a ring around it three others were created: (Hauts-de-Seine (92), Seine-Saint-Denis (93) and Val-de-Marne (94)). Returning to the Prefecture of Police jurisdiction, it still governs Paris and its closest départements as a unique "Prefecture de Paris". From 1986 Paris became the capital of an Île-de-France région of eight départements: itself as a département, the three abovementioned départements and a yet larger concentric circle of four much larger départements. The three inner département are generally called "la petite couronne", or "small crown", and the outer and larger four "la grande couronne". The Île-de-France région has its own administration, as well as each of the départements in the petite couronne and grande couronne. : See also: Paris mayors (comprehensive list)

Transport

Paris mayors Paris mayors Paris is served by two principal airports: Orly Airport, which is south of Paris, and the Charles De Gaulle International Airport in nearby Roissy-en-France. A third and much smaller airport, at the town of Beauvais, 70 km (45 mi) to the north of the city, is used by charter and low-cost airlines. Le Bourget airport nowadays only hosts business jets, air trade shows and the aerospace museum. Paris is a central hub of the national rail network of very fast (TGV) and normal (Corail) trains, which interconnects with a high-speed regional network, the RER. Six major railway stations, Gare du Nord, Gare Montparnasse, Gare de l'Est, Gare de Lyon, Gare d'Austerlitz, and Gare Saint-Lazare connect this train network to the world famous and highly efficient underground metro system, the Métro. This latter is a network of 380 stations (more than the London Underground) connected by 221.6km of rails There are two tangential tramway lines in the suburbs: Line T1 runs from Saint-Denis to Noisy-le-Sec, line T2 runs from La Défense to Issy. A third line along the southern inner orbital road is currently under construction. Administratively speaking, the public transportation networks of the Paris region are coordinated by the Syndicat des transports d'Île-de-France (STIF), formerly Syndicat des transports parisiens (STP). [http://www.stif-idf.fr/ official site] Members of the syndicate include the RATP, which operates the Parisian and some suburban busses, the Métro, and sections of the RER; the SNCF, which operates the rest of the RER and the suburban train lines; and other operators. The city is also the hub of France's motorway network, and is surrounded by an orbital road, the Périphérique, which roughly follows the path of final, 19th-century fortifications around Paris. On/off ramps of the Périphérique are called 'Portes', as they correspond to the former city gates in these fortifications. Most of these 'Portes' have parking areas and a metro station, where non-residents are advised to leave cars. Traffic in Paris is notoriously heavy, slow and tiresome. :See also: Transport in France

Cultural Centres and Organisations

Transport in France Transport in France basilica on Montmartre.]]

Monuments and Landmarks

The three most famous landmarks of Paris are almost certainly the Eiffel Tower, originally a "temporary" construction for the 1889 Universal Expositon, the Arc de Triomphe, commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte and the cathedral Notre Dame de Paris, a 12th-century ecclesiastical masterpiece. Other than the Eiffel Tower, the lone skyscraper Tour Montparnasse and Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on the hill Montmartre are easily visible from many locations around the city, while the window-shaped Grande Arche in La Défense marks the west.

Museums

Paris landmarks's most famous treasures.]]
- Louvre - a huge museum housing many works of art, including the Mona Lisa (La Joconde) and the Venus de Milo statue.
- Musée d'Orsay - an art museum housed in a converted 19th century railway station, which contains mainly Impressionist works.
- Centre Georges Pompidou, also known as Beaubourg - houses the Musée National d'Art Moderne and a cultural center with a large public library. Famous for its external skeleton of service pipes.
- Musée Rodin - a large collection of works by France's most famous sculptor
- Musée du Montparnasse in the former residence of artist Marie Vassilieff at 21 Avenue du Maine, details the history of the great artistic community of Montparnasse.
- Musée Cluny, also known as the Musée National du Moyen-Age, houses a large collection of art and artifacts from the Middle Ages, including the tapestry cycle The Lady and the Unicorn.
- Musée Picasso, exhibits nearly 3000 pieces of art by Pablo Picasso as well as art from his own personal collection including works by Cézanne and Matisse.

Historical Centres


- Montmartre - historic area on the Butte, home to the Basilica of the Sacré Coeur and also famous for the studios and cafés of many great artists.
- Champs-Élysées - a 17th-century garden promenade turned Avenue connection between the Concorde and Arc de Triomphe.
- Place de la Concorde - at the foot of the Champs-Élysées, built as the "Place Louis XV" site of the infamous guillotine. The Egyptian obleisk it holds today can be considered Paris's "oldest monument".
- Place de la Bastille - Former eastern stronghold and gate of Paris.
- Montparnasse - historic area on the Left Bank, famous for the its artists studios, music-halls, and café life.
- Quartier Latin - Paris's scholastic center from the 12th century, formerly stretching between the Left Bank's place Maubert and the Sorbonne university. Sorbonne in Paris. Given to the city in 1885, it faces west, toward the original Liberty in New York City.]]

Cemeteries

Many of Paris's illustrious historical figures have found rest in Père Lachaise Cemetery. Other notable cemeteries include Cimetière de Montmartre, Cimetière du Montparnasse, Cimetière de Passy and the Catacombs of Paris

Parks and Gardens

. Two of Paris's most famous gardens are the Tuileries Garden on the banks of the Seine next to the Louvre and the centrally-located Luxembourg Garden, which used to belong to a château built for the Marie de' Medici. During the Second Empire, Napoleon III created three vast gardens on the outskirts of Paris: Montsouris, Buttes Chaumont in the northeast, and Parc Monceau, formerly known as the folie de Chartres, in the northwest. On the western and eastern perimeters respectively are the two "forests", the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes.

Districts


- Les Halles - shopping precinct around an important metro connection station.
- Le Marais - trendy district on the Right Bank with large gay and Jewish populations
- l'Opéra - Shopping area with department stores such as Printemps and Galeries Lafayette

Boutiques, Department Stores and Hotels

Paris is famous for gastronomical establishments like Fauchon (delicatessen), near the Église de la Madeleine, or Berthillon (ice cream) on Île-Saint-Louis. Its department stores, e.g. Galeries Lafayette, Samaritaine (currently closed) or Printemps, are remarkable not only for the wide range of items they sell but also for their 19th-century or Art Nouveau architecture. Paris also hosts a number of famous hotels. The most prestigious are probably the Hôtel de Crillon on Place de la Concorde, and the nearby Hôtel Ritz Paris on Place Vendôme.

Nightlife


- Le Lido - cabaret on the Champs-Élysées famous for its exotic shows and where, as an American GI on leave with some army friends, Elvis Presley gave an impromptu concert.
- Moulin Rouge, Le Crazy Horse Saloon, Folies Bergères - other famous cabarets
- the Paris Olympia, le Zenith, Bercy, Bobino - concert halls
- The Buddha Bar, Barfly, Hotel Costes, Georges - trendy upscale restaurant / bars to see and be seen.
- Les Bains-Douches, le Man Ray, l'Elysée Montmartre, le Queen - famous and trendy nightclubs.
- The Rex Club, Le Tryptique, Le Batofar- good places for electro music (techno, electro-rock, D&B).

Sports Clubs

Paris's main sports clubs are Paris Saint-Germain, Football (soccer) club, Paris Basket Racing, Basketball team and Stade Français, Rugby union club.

Suburban Areas of Interest


- Business district
  - La Défense - major office, cinema and shopping complex, west of Paris.
  - Grande Arche de la Défense - built in line with the Louvre, place du Concorde and Arc de Triomphe.
- Chateaux and churches
  - Palace of Versailles - the former royal palace of Louis XIV and later kings, in the town of Versailles to the southeast of Paris.
  - Vaux-le-Vicomte, near Melun, a smaller palace on which Versailles was modelled.
  - Saint Denis Basilica - ancient Gothic Cathedral and burial site for many French monarchs, located north of the city.
- Civil Constructions
  - Arcueil Aqueduct - built in the 17th century and raised in 1874, it channels water from sources 156km to the south of Paris to the Montsouris reservoirs.
- Recreation parks and areas
  - Parc Astérix
  - Disneyland Resort Paris

References

# INSEE. Recensement de la population 1999. Paris. [http://www.recensement.insee.fr/FR/ST_ANA/D75/POPALLPOP1POP1AD75FR.html "Population totale par sexe et âge"]. Retrieved December 1, 2005. # INSEE. Recensement de la population 1999. Île-de-France. [http://www.recensement.insee.fr/FR/ST_ANA/R11/POPALLPOP1POP1AR11FR.html "Population totale par sexe et âge"]. Retrieved December 1, 2005. # INSEE - Comptes régionaux - données 2003 semi-définitives en base 2 000. [http://www.insee.fr/fr/insee_regions/idf/rfc/chifcle_fiche.asp?ref_id=ecotc001&tab_id=1070 "Produit intérieur brut (PIB) à prix courants."]. Retrieved December 1, 2005.

External links


- [http://www.wikitravel.org/en/article/Paris Wikitravel:Guide to Paris]
- [http://www.paris.fr/en/ English version of official site]
  - [http://www.paris.fr/ Official Paris website]
- [http://en.parisinfo.com/ English version of official Paris tourist office website]
  - [http://fr.parisinfo.com/ Official Paris Tourist Office website]
- [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=paris,+france&spn=0.131836,0.176468&t=k&hl=en Google Maps satellite images of Paris] als:Paris (Stadt) ko:파리 시 ja:パリ simple:Paris th:ปารีส

Seine River

This article is about the river in France. For other rivers named Seine, see Seine River (disambiguation). For the old Seine département, see Seine (département). A seine is also a kind of fishing net. The Seine (pronounced in French) is a major river of south-western

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France, and one of its commercial waterways. It is also a tourist attraction, particularly within the city of Paris.

Origin of the name

The name "Seine" comes from the Latin Sequana, which itself comes from Gaulish (Celtic) Sicauna. The name Sicauna is made up of Celtic sakw, which means "sacred" and comes from the Proto-Indo-European root
- sak- (which also gave Latin sacer and sanctus, which in turn gave English sacred and saint), and from a Celtic (or more probably Pre-Indo-European) suffix -onna which means "source, river", and which can be found in the name of many rivers of western Europe (such as the Garonne or the Dordogne). The name "Sakw -onna" ("sacred source", "sacred river"), is also the name of several other western European rivers, such as the Saône River, and possibly also the River Shannon. Another proposed etymology posits that Sequana is the Latin version of Gaulish Isicauna. Is-Icauna would be the diminutive of Icauna, which was the Gaulish name of the Yonne River. The ancient Gauls considered the Seine to be a tributary of the Yonne, which indeed presents a greater average discharge than the Seine (the river flowing through Paris should be called Yonne if the standard rules of geography were applied). Icauna comes from the Pre-Indo-European roots inka -onna. Further research will be needed to decide between both etymologies. Further downstream in what is now Normandy, the Seine was known as Rodo, or Roto, which is a traditional Celtic name for rivers, and is also the original name of the Rhône River (see Rhône article for further explanations). This is proved by the name of Rouen, which was Rotomagos in Gaulish, meaning "field, plain (magos in Gaulish, whose meaning evolved into "market") of the Roto".

Geography

The river is 780 km (485 miles) long, France's second-longest (after the Loire). Its main tributaries are the Aube, Marne and Oise rivers from the north and the Yonne and Eure rivers from the south. It is connected with canals to the Scheldt (also called the Escaut), Meuse, Rhine, Saône and Loire rivers. The Seine rises in the French région of Burgundy, in the département of Côte-d'Or, 30 km (18 miles) northwest of Dijon at a height of 471 metres (1545 feet). The river then flows through Troyes to Paris. In Paris, narrowed between high stone embankments, the river carries commercial barges, waterbuses and large tourist boats (bateaux-mouches). From the water, fine views are seen of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay (housing Paris' collection of Impressionist art), the Conciergerie and the Eiffel Tower. The northern side of the river is described as the Right Bank (Rive Droite) and the southern side as the Left Bank (Rive Gauche), because when facing the same direction that the river flows, these are the directions to the left and right. Left Bank The river then meanders in large loops through Normandy and Rouen, entering the English Channel (La Manche) in an estuary between Le Havre and Honfleur. The water of the Seine is an important resource. Electric power stations, thermal and nuclear, pull their cooling water from the river. Half the water used in the Paris region, both for industry and for consumption, and three quarters of the water used in the area between Rouen and Le Havre, is taken from the river.
Honfleur

Navigation

The Seine is dredged and oceangoing vessels can dock at Rouen, 120 km (75 miles) from the sea. Commercial riverboats can use the river from Bar-sur-Seine, 560 km (350 miles) from its mouth. At Paris, the river is only 24 metres (80 feet) above sea level, 445 km (277 miles) from its mouth, making it slow flowing and thus easily navigable. The tidal section of the river, from Le Havre to well beyond Rouen, is followed by a canalized section with four large multiple locks until the mouth of the Oise river at Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. Then two more multiple locks at Bougival / Chatou and at Suresnes lift the vessels to the level of the river in Paris, where the mouth of the Marne River is located. Upstream from Paris seven more locks ensure navigation to Saint Mammès (where the Loing mouth is situated). Through an eighth lock the river Yonne is reached at Monterau. From the mouth of the Yonne, larger ships can continue upstream the Seine till Nogent-sur-Seine. From there on, the river is only navigable for small craft. All navigation ends abruptly at Marcilly-sur-Seine, where the ancient Canal de la Haute Seine used to allow vessels to continue all the way to Troyes. This canal has been abandoned for many years now. (Source: [http://www.noordersoft.com/indexen.html NoorderSoft Waterways Database])

History

In ancient times the Seine was known by the Latin name Sequana. Dredging in the 1960s mostly eliminated the tidal bore ("le mascaret") and the surrounding area. It was split into four départements in 1968: Paris, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne. See: Seine (département). The Banks of the Seine in Paris were added to the UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1991.

See also

Seine (département) Bateau-mouche Sightseeing boats of the Seine Category:Rivers of France ko:센 강 ja:セーヌ川

Celt

:This article is about the European people. For the tool, see celt (tool). celt (tool) The term Celts (pronounced "kelts") refers to any of a number of ancient peoples in Europe using the Celtic languages, which form a branch of Indo-European languages, as well as others whose language is unknown but where associated cultural traits such as Celtic art are found in archaeological evidence. Historical theories were developed that these factors were indicative of a common origin, but later theories of culture spreading to differing indigenous peoples have recently been supported by genetic studies. Though the spread of the Roman empire led to continental Celts adopting Roman culture, the development of Celtic Christianity in Ireland and Britain brought an early medieval renaissance of Celtic art between 400 and 1200. Antiquarian interest from the 17th century led to the term Celt being developed, and rising nationalism brought Celtic revivals from the 19th century in areas where the use of Celtic languages had continued. Today, "Celtic" is often used to describe the languages and respective cultures of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, the Isle of Man and the French region of Brittany, but correctly corresponds to the Celtic language family in which are still spoken Scottish, Irish and Manx (Gaelic languages) and Welsh, Breton and Cornish (Brythonic languages).

Development of the term "Celt"

The first literary reference to the Celtic people, as keltoi or hidden people, is by the Greek historian Hecataeus in 517 BC. According to Greek mythology, Celtus was the son of Heracles and Celtine, the daughter of Bretannus. Celtus became the primogenitor of Celts (Ref.: Parth. 30.1-2). In Latin Celta, in turn from Herodotus' word for the Gauls, Keltoi. The Romans used Celtae to refer to continental Gauls, but apparently not to insular Celts, which were divided into Goidhels and Britons, and possibly other peoples. This is likely due to the possibility that, at those times, the term "Celta/Keltos" was tied to those cultures or people descendant from the Central Europe Celts, while no ties were known to the insular people (especially the Gaels whose language was extremely different from that of Brythonic Celts). The English word is modern, attested from 1707. In the late 17th century the work of scholars such as Edward Lhuyd brought academic attention, then in the 18th century the interest in "primitivism" which led to the idea of the "noble savage" brought a wave of enthusiasm for all things Celtic and Druidic. The "Irish revival" came after the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 as a conscious attempt to demonstrate an Irish national identity, and with its counterpart in other countries subsequently became the "Celtic revival". Nowadays "Celt" is usually pronounced as and "Celtic" as (in IPA) when referring to the ethnic group and its languages, while the pronunciation remains in use mainly for certain sports teams (eg. the NBA team, Boston Celtics, and the SPL side, Celtic F.C., in Glasgow). (The pronunciation with /s/ reflects historical palatalization of the letter 'C' when it occurs before 'I' or 'E' in words of Latin origin; in the Classical era Latin 'C' was always pronounced as /k/. The modern pronunciation with /k/ is a reversion to the original, whereas the pronunciation with /s/ has not been reverted.) The word spelt as "Celtic" is (arguably) English, as the Latin was "Celticus" or "Celticum", the Welsh is "Celtaidd", and the Irish Gaelic is "Ceilteach". By this argument, a pronunciation with /s/ should therefore be acceptable. The term "Celt" or "Celtic" can be used in several senses: it can denote a group of peoples who speak or descend from speakers of Celtic languages; or the people of prehistoric and early historic Europe who share common cultural traits which are thought to have originated in the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. In contemporary terms, there are typically six nations defined as 'Celtic Nations'. To be defined as a Celtic nation, that nation must have ownership of a Celtic language. The first six are usually defined as Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany. The additional nations of Galicia and Asturias in Spain are sometimes considered to be modern Celtic nations based on the survival of Celtic traditions similar to the traditions of other Celtic nations, however, the Celtic language has not survived in either. England retains many Celtic influences but is not Celtic, but the languages of Pre-Anglo Celtic peoples influences dialects of some of its more rural regions, particularly those bordering Scotland and Wales, the best known of which are Cumbric which was spoken from Strathclyde to Derbyshire as recently as the 11th century, and the language centred on Devon — both languages are under-going a modern revival. Other areas of Europe are associated with being Celtic as well, including France, which traces its roots to the Gauls. In Scotland, the Gaelic language traces at least some of its roots to migration and settlement by the Irish Dalriada/Scotti. Due to the settlement of English speaking Angles in the lowlands, which — among other things — drove out the Gaelic language, Scots Gaelic survives only in the country's northern and western fringes in the areas where Scotti tribes settled and dominated over the indigenous Brythonic culture. The use of the word 'Celtic' as a valid umbrella term for the pre-Roman peoples of Britain has been challenged by a number of writers — including Simon James of the British Museum. His book The Atlantic Celts - Ancient People Or Modern Invention? makes the point that the Romans never used the term 'Celtic' in reference to the peoples of the Atlantic archipelago, i.e. the British Isles, and points out that the modern term "Celt" was coined as a useful umbrella term in the early 18th century to distinguish the non-English inhabitants of the archipelago when England united with Scotland in 1707 to create the United Kingdom. Nationalists in Scotland, Ireland and Wales looked for a way to differentiate themselves from England and assert their right to independence. James then argues that, despite the obvious linguistic connections, archaeology does not suggest a united Celtic culture and that the term is misleading, no more (or less) meaningful than 'Western European' would be today. This is somewhat misleading, however, since the Romans and Greeks did describe the Atlantic and continental Celts as being related to each other, having military alliances (and rivalries) with one another, sharing similar languages and traditions, as well as having a common religion and priest class. Additionally, archeological evidence shows quite clearly that the Atlantic and continental Celts were engaged in commerce with each other via regular trade routes. No one on either side of the debate argues that Celtic people have ever been a single homogenous political or social unit, but to argue that the Atlantic Celts were not Celts at all simply because hostile Romans never described them as such betrays a rather unscholarly bias. Miranda Green, author of Celtic Goddesses, describes archaeologists as finding "a certain homogeneity" in the traditions in the area of Celtic habitation including Britain and Ireland — an assertion backed up by recent genetic evidence which shows the populations of Ireland and Wales to be virtually indistinguishable from each other. She sees the inhabitants of the British Isles and Ireland as having become thoroughly Celticized by the time of the Roman arrival, mainly through spread of culture rather than a movement of people. In his book Iron Age Britain, Barry Cunliffe concludes that "...there is no evidence in the British Isles to suggest that a population group of any size migrated from the continent in the first millennium BC...". Cunliffe tempers his remarks by pointing out that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but modern archaeological thought tends to disparage the idea of large population movements without facts to back them up, a caution which appears to be vindicated by genetic studies. In other words, Celtic culture in the Atlantic Archipelago and continental Europe most probably emerged through the peaceful convergence of local tribal cultures bound together by networks of trade and kinship — not by war and conquest. This type of peaceful convergence and cooperation is actually relatively common among tribal peoples; other well known examples of the phenomenon include the Six Nations of the Iroquois League and the Nuer of East Africa. The ancient Celts are thus best depicted as a loose and highly diverse collection of indigenous tribal societies bound together by trade, a common druidic religion, and similar political institutions — but each having its own local language and traditions. Michael Morse in the conclusion of his book How the Celts came to Britain concedes that the concepts of a broad Celtic linguistic area and recognizably Celtic art have their uses, but argues that the term implies a greater unity than existed. Despite such problems he suggests that the term Celt is probably too deep-rooted to be replaced and — what is more important — it has the definition that we choose to give it. The problem is that the wider public reads into the term quite anachronistic concepts of ethnic unity that no one on either side in the academic debate holds.

Population genetics

With the information gathered recently by population geneticists, it is becoming increasingly clear that the old idea of large-scale replacement by newer invaders is often a misleading concept. The Celtic ethnicity debate took off at a particularly early stage in population genetic studies. In his book, "Neanderthal", the archaeologist, Douglas Palmer, refers to genetic research conducted across Europe, and then states that the original modern genetic group in Europe arrived between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago with the spread of farming, displacing the earlier hunter gatherer populations. Such displacement occurred by population explosion, since farming is capable of supporting up to a 60 times greater population than the hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the same area; :"None of Europe's subsequent historic upheavals - even catastrophic wars and famines - has seriously dented the old pattern set by the influx of farmers. The Goths, Huns and Romans have come and gone without any significant impact on the ancient gene map of Europe". -Douglas Palmer It seems futile to suggest that people who were once part of a wider Celtic cultural group, cannot be considered Celtic, in the same way that it would seem futile to suggest that their direct descendants in places like Devon or Cumbrian cannot be considered English in modern times. Perhaps our percepion of race and culture need to change, as European population genetic history seems to indicate that the latter is independent of the former.

Origins and geographical distribution

Huns style. The red area indicates an idea of the possible region of Celtic influence around 400 BC.]] The Celtic language family is a branch of the larger Indo-European family, which leads some scholars to a hypothesis that the original speakers of the Celtic proto-language may have arisen in the Pontic-Caspian steppes (see Kurgan). However, as the Celts enter history from around 600 BC, they are already split into several languages groups, and spread over much of Central Europe, the Iberian peninsula, Ireland and Britain, and studies now suggest that some of the Celtic peoples - including the ancestors of all the modern Celtic nations - had a largely pre-Celtic genetic ancestry, shared with the Basque people and possibly going back to the Palaeolithic. . Some scholars think that the Urnfield culture represents an origin for the Celts as a distinct cultural branch of the Indo-European family. This culture was preeminent in central Europe during the late Bronze Age, from ca. 1200 BC until 700 BC, itself following the Unetice and Tumulus cultures. The Urnfield period saw a dramatic increase in population in the region, probably due to innovations in technology and agricultural practices. The spread of iron-working led to the development of the Hallstatt culture directly from the Urnfield (c. 700 to 500 BC). Proto-Celtic, the latest common ancestor of all known Celtic languages, is thought to have been spoken at the time of the late Urnfield or early Hallstatt cultures, in the early 1st millennium BC. The spread of the Celtic languages to Britain and to Iberia would have occurred during the first half of the 1st millennium, the earliest chariot burials in Britain dating to ca. 500 BC. Over the centuries they developed into the separate Celtiberian, Goidelic and Brythonic languages. Whether Goidelic and Brythonic are descended from a common Insular-Celtic language, or if they reflect two separate waves of migration is disputed. The La Tène culture, in any case, can be associated with the Gauls, but it is entirely too late for a candidate for the Proto-Celtic culture. The Hallstatt culture was succeeded by the La Tène culture, and during the final stages of the Iron Age gradually transformed into the explicitly Celtic culture of early historical times. The La Tène culture was distributed around the upper reaches of the Danube, Switzerland, Austria, southern and central Germany, eastern France, Bohemia and Moravia, and parts of Hungary. The technologies, decorative practices and metal-working styles of the La Tène were to be very influential on the continental Celts. The La Tène style was highly derivative from the Greek, Etruscan and Scythian decorative styles with whom the La Tène settlers frequently traded. It is not known whether the Picts of Scotland were Celts or the remnant of an earlier population of the British Isles who had been pushed to the margin by Celtic invasions, or indeed whether they spoke a Brythonic language. The lack of any evidence to support the Celtic Invasion model, however, leads many scholars to favor the former model. In historical times western Scotland was colonised by Celtic Scotti from Ireland, who subsequently formed a political union with the Picts under Kenneth mac Alpin who had both Scots and Pictish ancestry. Additional forays into Greece and central Italy during the historical period did not result in settlement, though the same movement that brought Celtic invaders to Greece pushed on through to Anatolia, where they settled as the Galatians. As there is no archaeological evidence for large scale invasions in some of the other areas, one current school of thought holds that Celtic language and culture spread to those areas by contact rather than invasion. However, the Celtic invasions of Italy, Greece, and western Anatolia are well documented in Greek and Latin history. Examine the Map of Celtic Landsfor more information. Stonehenge and the other megalithic monuments long predate the Iron Age Celtic culture, but Genetic evidence indicates that the Celtic populations of the Atlantic Archipelago have been relatively stable for at least 6,000 years, in which case the modern Celts would be the direct descendants of their builders. There is no evidence that they used these sites as areas of worship from the Iron Age on, however, and indeed most evidence suggest that the Druidic Celtic religion(s) preferred to use groves of Oak trees as places of worship. The connection between these monuments and the Celts largely stems from 18th century romantics such as William Stukely.

Celts in Ireland and Britain

The indigenous populations of Britain and Ireland today are primarily descended from the ancient peoples that have always inhabited these lands. As to their culture, little is known but remnants remain primarily in the naming of certain geographical features, such as the rivers Clyde, Tamar, Thames and Tyne. By the Roman period most of the inhabitants of the isles of Ireland and Great Britain (the ancient Britons) were speaking Goidelic or Brythonic languages, close counterparts to Gaulish languages spoken on the European mainland. Historians explained this as the result of successive invasions from the European continent by diverse Celtic-speaking peoples over the course of several centuries. In 1946 the Celtic scholar T. F. O'Rahilly published his extremely influential model of the early history of Ireland which postulated four separate waves of Celtic invaders. What languages were spoken by the peoples of the British Isles before the arrival of the Celts is unknown. early history of Ireland Later research indicated that the language and culture had developed gradually and continuously, and in Ireland no archaeological evidence was found for large intrusive groups of Celtic immigrants, suggesting to historians such as Colin Renfrew that the native Late Bronze Age inhabitants gradually absorbed influences to create "Celtic" culture. The very few continental La Tène culture style objects which had been found in Ireland could have been imports, or the possessions of a few rich immigrants. Julius Caesar had written of people in Britain who came from Belgium (the Belgae), but archaeological evidence which was interpreted in the 1930s as confirming this was contradicted by later interpretations and it was suggested that there might have been only a handful of élite Belgae in Britain. In the 1970s this model was popularised by Colin Burgess in his book The Age of Stonehenge which theorised that Celtic culture in Great Britain "emerged" rather than resulted from invasion and that the Celts were not invading aliens, but the descendants of the people of Stonehenge. More recently a number of genetic studies have supported this model of culture being absorbed by native populations. The study by Cristian Capelli, David Goldstein and others at University College, London showed that genes associated with Gaelic names in Ireland and Scotland are also common in Wales, Cornwall and most parts England, and are similar to the genes of the Basque people, who speak a non-Indo-European language. This similarity supported earlier findings in suggesting a largely pre-Celtic genetic ancestry, possibly going back to the Paleolithic. They suggest that 'Celtic' culture and the Celtic language were imported to Britain by cultural contact not mass invasions, either by Indo-Europeans bringing farming or by Celts in 600 BC. Recent studies have proven that, contrary to long-standing beliefs, the Teuton tribes did not wipe out the Romano-British of England but rather, over the course of six centuries, conquered the native Brythonic people of what is now England and south east Scotland and imposed their culture and language upon them, in a manner similar to the Irish spread over the west of Scotland.

Roman influence

At the dawn of history in Europe, the Celts in present-day France were known as Gauls. Their descendants were described by Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars. There was also an early Celtic presence in northern Italy. Other Celtic tribes invaded Italy, establishing there a city they called Mediolanum (modern Milan) and sacking Rome itself in 390 BC following the Battle of the Allia. A century later the defeat of the combined Samnite, Celtic and Etruscan alliance by the Romans in the Third Samnite War sounded the end of the Celtic domination in Europe, but it was not until 192 BC that the Roman armies conquered the last remaining independent Celtic kingdoms in Italy. Under Caesar the Romans conquered Celtic Gaul, and from Claudius onward the Roman empire absorbed parts of the Celtic British Isles. Roman local government of these regions closely mirrored pre-Roman 'tribal' boundaries, and archaeological finds suggest native involvement in local government. Latin was the official language of these regions after the conquests. The native peoples under Roman rule became Romanized and keen to adopt Roman ways. Celtic art had already incorporated classical influences, and surviving Gallo-Roman pieces interpret classical subjects or keep faith with old traditions despite a Roman overlay.

Examples of Romanization

Examples of Romanization include the slow dissapperence of druids. This was because under Roman rule the druids lost power. Before Roman rule druids were important and made almost all desicions. When Rome came to rule druids no longer made these desicions. The use of stone by Celts. Before Rome they almost only used mud and sticks. When they started to interact with Rome more they started to use stone. Appearence of Roman-Celt hybrid gods. With more interaction with Rome celtic gods started to have names such as Mars.

Celtic Christianity

While the regions under Roman rule adopted Christianity along with the rest of the Roman empire, unconquered areas of Scotland and Ireland moved from Celtic polytheism to Celtic Christianity which was a major source of missionary work in other parts of Britain and central Europe. This brought the early medieval renaissance of Celtic art between 400 and 1200, developing many of the styles now thought of as typically Celtic, and found through much of Ireland and Britain, including the north-east and far north of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland Islands. This was brought to an end by Roman Catholic and Norman influence, though the Celtic languages and some minor influences of the art continued.

Celts pushed west by Germanic migration

Celts were pushed westwards by successive waves of Germanic invaders, perhaps themselves at times pressured by Huns and Scythians or simply population pressures in their homeland of Scandinavia and Northern Germany. With the fall of the Roman Empire the Celts of Gaul, Iberia and Britannia were "conquered" by tribes speaking Germanic languages. Elsewhere, the Celtic populations were assimilated by others, leaving behind them only a legend and a number of place names such as Bohemia, after the Boii tribe which once lived there, or the Kingdom of Belgium, after the Belgae, a Celtic tribe of Northern Gaul and south-eastern England. Their mythology has been absorbed into the folklore of half a dozen other countries. For instance, the famous Medieval English Arthurian tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is almost certainly partially derived from the medieval Irish text Fled Bricrend (The Feast of Bricriu). Argument rages in the academic world as to whether the Celts in England were mostly wiped out/pushed west as the lack of evidence for influence of the Celts on Anglo-Saxon society suggests, or whether the Teuton migration consisted merely of the social elite and that the genocide was cultural rather than physical due to such relatively few numbers of Anglo-Saxons mixing with the far larger native population, enabled to do so due to the civil strife in Britain after the Roman withdrawal and the unity of the incoming invaders. Recent DNA studies have confirmed that the population of England maintains a predominately ancient British element, equal in most parts to Cornwall and Wales. The general indigenous population of Yorkshire, East Anglia and the Orkney and Sheltand Islands are those populations with the least traces of ancient British continuation . Ironically, it is Viking genetic influence and not Anglo-Saxon which has had a more profound impact on British bloodlines.

Celtic social system and arts

The pre-Christian Celts had a well-organized social structure, based on class and kinship, with the religion we call Celtic polytheism. Elected Kings led the tribes, and society was divided into three groups: a warrior aristocracy, an intellectual class including druids, poets, and jurists, and everyone else. Women participated both in warfare and in kingship, and all the offices of high and low kings were filled by election under the system of tanistry, both factors which would confuse Norman writers expecting the feudal principle of primogeniture where the succession goes to the first born son. Little is known of family structure, but Athenaeus in his Deipnosophists, 13.603, claims that "the Celts, in spite of the fact that their women are very beautiful, prefer boys as sexual partners. There are some of them who will regularly go to bed – on those animal skins of theirs – with a pair of lovers," implying with a woman and a boy. Celtic societies were organised around warfare, but this seems to have been more of a sport focussed on raids and hunting rather than organised territorial conquest, drawing obvious comparisons to warfare among Native Americans prior to European contact. This was the age of Hillforts and duns, but there was apparently no urbanization. There is strong archeological evidence to suggest that the pre-Roman Celtic nations were tied into a network of overland trade routes that spanned Eurasia from Ireland to China. Celtic traders were also in contact with the Phoenicians, gold works made in Pre-Roman Ireland have been unearthed in archeological digs in Palestine, and trade routes between the Celtic nations and Palestine date back to at least 1600 BC. Local trade was largely in the form of barter, but as with most tribal societies they probably had a reciprocal economy in which goods and other services are not exchanged, but are given on the basis of mutual relationships and the obligations of kinship. Though they had a written language, the Ogham script, it was only used for ceremonial purposes and they produced little in the way of literary output. Instead, Celtic peoples preferred the oral Bardic tradition. The oldest recorded rhyming poetry in the world is of Irish origin and is a transcription of a much older epic poem, leading some scholars to claim that the Celts invented Rhyme. They were highly skilled in visual arts and Celtic art produced a great deal of intricate and beautiful metalwork, examples of which have been preserved by their distinctive burial rites. In some regards the Atlantic Celts were conservative, for example they still used chariots in combat long after they had been reduced to ceremonial roles by the Greeks and Romans, though when faced with the Romans, and in the Atlantic islands their chariot tactics defeated the invasion attempted by Julius Caesar.

Celtic Religous Patterns

Although Celtic gods varied from region to region and tribe to tribe, the Celtic religion had some patterns. For example like Mediterranean cultures most early Celts worshipped in sacred groves. This was once postulated to have occured because of Celts trading with Mediterranean cultures; however, evidence from Hallstatt era finds show that the earliest Celts practiced this before such trade took place. More reasonably, it is a byproduct of most primitive religion to worship in such a way. However, La Tene Celts also built temples of varying size and shape, though they still usually maintained sacred trees, or votive pools. Worship was, in this way, defered to temples, when they were available. Numerous temples were converted by the Romans, and with little difficulty; the design was rather similar to Roman temples, as they were both highly influenced by the Greeks, architecturally speaking. They druids postitions vary; a druid is not always a priest. Druids are any members of a Celtic society who had what we would view today as a college education. The most educated druids were usually doctors, priests, and heralds, as these occupations required the most memorization and skill for their practices. Priests from this class were in charge of a great deal of religious festivals, as well as organizing the calendar; a daunting task as the Celtic calendar is incredibly accurate, but required manual correction about every 40 years, meaning lengthy mathematic discourse. Druids also carried out sacrifices of crops, animals, and during specific festivals, humans. In a Celtic society, people were not executed for crimes, except during these festivals. Such executions varied, depending on what god the execution was dedicated to. Among the most famous is the human sacrifices practiced in the course of Essus worship. Essus was, more or less, a benevolent law god to many Celts, particularly Gauls. However, Essus worship also intoned a sense of merciless behavior toward repeated criminals, rapists, traitors, and other societal dregs. The offender, if found guilty, would be taken to the temple of Essus, where an oak would be growing through an opening in the temple roof. His stomach would be cut open, and he would be hung from an oak branch. The Celts' gods were often named after natural things. For example the source of rivers would often have their own goddesses, though rarely many gods. Another theme with Celt gods were triple deities; not only goddesses, but numerous gods. For example the Mothers of Britain, or Cromm Cruach's slovenly, deific, and humanistic forms. The main deities of Celtic religion, contrary to much misconception, were usually male. The world in some remaining myths is often depicted as having been forged by a god with a hammer, such as Dagda or Sucellos, who then poured all life from a magic cauldron or cup; a source of pre-Christian 'Holy Grail' myths in Celtic societies. While deities varied, several constant deities or demigods existed over a wide area. A great example is Lugos, a heroic sun god from Gaul and the southern, Gallic parts of Britain. He is also known as Lugh (in Ireland), Llew (in non-Gallic Britain), and Lug (among Celtiberians, who were not culturally true Celts). Early depictions of him exist as early as the Hallstatt era, suggesting him as one of the longest existing gods of Celtic religion. Similar is the horse and fertility goddess, Epona, who was also worshipped by the Romans when they came to rule Gaul. She also seems to have existed from the early era. Finally, there is Sucellos, who is argued by some to have been the 'creator of the universe' in some Celtic religions. He is party to Dagda of Ireland, and was worshipped over an enormous area, including by non-Celtic peoples such as the Lusitani. He was the patron god of the Ordovices tribe of Britain, and was built up by the Arverni and their allies to replace the druidic god Cernunnos, as the Gallic druids were allies of their enemies in the rule for Gaul; the Aedui. Other religious practices also existed; Celts seem to have universally removed body hair. Some postulate this as religious, but was more realistically part of the Celtic propensity for cleanliness. Body hair kept dirt close to the body, and Celts were an extremely cleanly people, so this was unacceptable. However, Celts also took heads from dead enemies. This was definitely a religious practice in origin. However, even post-Christian Gaels continued this practice into the middle ages; some Irish even took to scalping the heads that they took, so they could braid the scalp through rings on their weapons. The religious connotations by that point were slim, but it does imply that taking heads had incredible cultural importance to have persisted so long after the religious background had been removed. To our understanding, Celts believed the soul resided in the head, and that capturing a head meant that one captured the soul of an opponent, and that when a Celt died, the dead whom he had collected would serve him as slaves for eternity.

Celts as head-hunters

"Amongst the Celts the human head was venerated above all else, since the head was to the Celt the soul, centre of the emotions as well as of life itself, a symbol of divinity and of the powers of the other-world." - Paul Jacobsthal, Early Celtic Art. The Celtic cult of the severed head is documented not only in the many sculptured representations of severed heads in La Tene carvings, but in the surviving Celtic mythology, which is full of stories of the severed heads of heroes and the saints who carry their decapitated heads, right down to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight who picks up his own severed head after Gawain has struck it off, just as St. Denis carried his head to the top of Montmartre. Separated from the mundane body, although still alive, the animated head acquires the ability to see into the mythic realm. Diodorus Siculus, in his 1st century History had this to say about Celtic head-hunting: "They cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses. The blood-stained spoils they hand over to their attendants and carry off as booty, while striking up a paean and singing a song of victory; and they nail up these first fruits upon their houses, just as do those who lay low wild animals in certain kinds of hunting. They embalm in cedar oil the heads of the most distinguished enemies, and preserve them carefully in a chest, and display them with pride to strangers, saying that for this head one of their ancestors, or his father, or the man himself, refused the offer of a large sum of money. They say that some of them boast that they refused the weight of the head in gold; thus displaying what is only a barbarous kind of magnanimity, for it is not a sign of nobility to refrain from selling the proofs of one's valour. It is rather true that it is bestial to continue one's hostility against a slain fellow man." The Celts also believed that if they attached the head of their enemy to a pole or a fence near their house, the head would start crying when the enemy was near. The Celtic headhunters venerated the image of the severed head as a continuing source of spiritual power. If the head is the seat of the soul, possessing the severed head of an enemy, honorably reaped in battle, added prestige to any warrior's reputation. According to tradition the buried head of a god or hero named Bran the Blessed protected Britain from invasion across the English Channel.

Names for Celts

The origin of the various names used since classical times for the people known today as the Celts is obscure and has been controversial. It appears that none of the terms recorded were ever used by Celtic speakers of themselves. In particular, there is no record of the term "Celt" being used in connection with the inhabitants of Ireland and Britain prior to the 19th century.

The name "Gauls"

English Gaul(s), French Gaulois(es), Spanish Galo(s), Latin Gallus or Galli, German Gallier might be from an originally Celtic ethnic or tribal name (perhaps borrowed into Latin during the early 400s BC, Celtic expansions into Italy). Its root may be the Common Celtic
- galno, meaning "power" or "strength". Greek Galatai (see Galatia in Anatolia) seems to be based on the same root, borrowed directly from the same hypothetical Celtic source which gave us Galli (the suffix -atai is simply an ethnic name indicator).

The word "Welsh"

The word Welsh is a Germanic word, yet it may ultimately have a Celtic source. It may be the result of an early borrowing (in the 4th century BC) of the Celtic tribal name Volcae into early Germanic (becoming the Proto-Germanic
- Walh-, "Foreigner" and the suffixed form
- Walhisk-). The Volcae were one of the Celtic peoples that barred, for two centuries, the southward expansion of the German tribes in central Germany on the line of the Hartz mountains and into Saxony and Silesia. In the middle ages certain districts of what is now Germany were known as "Welschland" as opposed to "Deutschland", and the word is cognate with Vlach (see: Etymology of Vlach) and Walloon as well as the 'wall' in Cornwall. During the early Germanic period, the term seems to have been applied to the peasant population of the Roman Empire, most of whom were, in the areas immediately settled by the Germans, of ultimately Celtic origin.

The name "Celts"

English Celt(s), Latin Celtus pl. Celti (Celtae), Greek Κέλτης pl. Κέλτες seem to be based on a native Celtic ethnic name (singular
- Celtos or
- Celta with plurals
- Celtoi or
- Celta:s), of unsure etymology. The root would seem to be a Primitive Indo-European
- kel- or (s)kel-, but there are several such roots of various meanings to choose from (
- kel- "to be prominent",
- kel- "to drive or set in motion",
- kel- "to strike or cut" etc.)

See also


- Lusitanians
- Saka
- Cimmerians
- Scythians
- Amazons
- Cimbri
- Belgae
- Ancient Britain
- Celtic mythology
- Irish mythology
- Celtic language
- Welsh language
- Cornish language
- Celtic law
- Celtic art
- Celtic music
- Celtic knot
- Celtic High Crosses
- Celtic Christianity
- Cumbric language
- List of Celts
- List of Celtic tribes
- The Celt belt
- Proto-Germanic
- Modern Celts
- Pronunciation of Celtic
- Pan-Celticism
- Celtic League (political organisation)
- Celtic Congress
- Latin-celt
- Franco-celt

Endnotes

# "The pronunciation of the word remains ambiguous, however, a conflict between its Greek root, keltoi, and its path through French, where celtique is pronounced with a soft c: 'sell-TEEK'. Although many dictionaries, including the OED, prefer the soft c pronunciation, most students of Celtic culture prefer the hard c: 'KELL-tik', in acknowledgement of its Greek origin." [MacKillop, 1998, p. XVII] # # Lhuyd, Edward. Archæologia britannica. [cf. p. 290] #

References


- Collis, John. The Celts - Origins, Myths & Inventions. Stroud: Tempus Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0752429132.
- Cunliffe, Barry. The Ancient Celts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0198150105.
- Cunliffe, Barry. Iron age Britain. London: Batsford, 2004. ISBN 0713488395
- James, Simon. The Atlantic Celts - Ancient People Or Modern Invention? Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, August 1999. ISBN 0299166740.
- James, Simon & Rigby, Valerie. Britain and the Celtic Iron Age. London: British Museum Press, 1997. ISBN 0714123064.
- Kruta,V., O. Frey, Barry Raftery and M. Szabo. eds. The Celts. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1991. ISBN 0847821935.
- Laing, Lloyd. The Archaeology of Late Celtic Britain and Ireland c. 400--1200 AD. London: Methuen, 1975. ISBN 0416823602
- MacKillop, James. A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0192801201
- McEvedy, Colin. The Penguin Atlas of Ancient History. New York: Penguin, 1985. ISBN 0140708324
- Mallory, J. P. In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth. London: Thames and Hudson, 1991. ISBN 0500276161.
- Powell, T. G. E. The Celts. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1980. third ed. 1997. ISBN 0500272751.
- Raftery, Barry. Pagan Celtic Ireland: The Enigma of the Irish Iron Age. London: Thames & Hudson, 1994. ISBN 0500279837.
- Renfrew, Colin. Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. ISBN 0521386756.
- Ward-Perkins, Bryan. "Why Did The Anglo-Saxons Not Become More British?" in English Historical Review, June 2000.
- Weale, M. "Y Chromosome Evidence For Anglo-Saxon Mass Migration." in Society For Molecular Biology And Evolution, 2002.
- Lloyd and Jenifer Laing. Art of the Celts, London: Thames and Hudson, 1992 ISBN 0500202567

External links


- [http://www.resourcesforhistory.com Celts and Romans]
- [http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MA/CELTS.HTM The Celts]
- [http://www.familytreedna.com/pdf/capelli2_CB.pdf "A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles" (pdf)]
- BBC [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/2076470.stm "English and Welsh are races apart"]
- BBC [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/bloodofthevikings/genetics_results_07.shtml "Descendents of the ancient Britons in genetic survey results for Rush and Castlerea, Ireland, 2003".] Category:Ancient Roman enemies and allies Category:Ancient peoples Category:Celts Category:Ethnic groups of Europe als:Kelten ms:Celt ja:ケルト人

1828

1828 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar).

Events


- January 4 - The Vicomte de Martignac succeeds the Comte de Villèle as Prime Minister of France.
- January 22 - The Duke of Wellington succeeds Lord Goderich as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He repeals the Test Act, emancipating all Catholics, and introduces the Roman Catholic Relief Act the following year.
- April 26 - Russia declares war on Turkey, in support of the Greek struggle f