Paris By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France.
The City of Paris is but the core of a built-up area that extends well beyond its administrative limits. Commonly referred to as the agglomération Parisienne, and statistically as a unité urbaine, the agglomeration has a 2013 population of 10,601,122, which makes it the largest in the European Union.a number one-fifth the population of France, and one that makes it, after London, the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union. Although joined in a single urban tissue, Paris lack of administrative and economic cohesion with its suburbs has been a longstanding problem, but a 2016 Metropole of Grand Paris economic and environmental initiative covering an area and a population of 7 million, exists since 2016.
The city is also a major rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the citys subway system, the Paris Métro, serves 5.23 million passengers daily. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro. Notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015.
Paris has many important cultural institutions: its Louvre museum is the most visited in the world; its Musée dOrsay is noted for its collection of French Impressionist art, and its Pompidou-center Musée National dArt Moderne has the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe. The central area of the city along the Seine River is classified as a UNESCO Heritage Site and includes many notable monuments, including Notre Dame Cathedral, the Sainte-Chapelle, the former Universal Exposition Grand Palais, Petit Palais and Eiffel Tower, and the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the worlds top tourist destinations.
The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris. The 80,000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros. Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups, the 2007 Rugby World Cup, and the 1960, 1984, and 2016 UEFA European Championships were also held in the city, and every July, the Tour de France bicycle race finishes in the city.

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