General Information

The Île de la Cité is one of two remaining natural islands in the Seine within the city of Paris. The western end has held a palace since Merovingian times, and its eastern end has served religious purposes since the same period, especially after the construction of a cathedral preceding today’s Notre Dame in the 10th century.

Additional Information

Up till the 19th century, this was a mostly residential and commercial area. This changed, however, in the 1850s, when the city’s Prefecture de Police, Palais de Justice, Hôtel-Dieu hospital and Tribunal de Commerce were opened. Only the westernmost and north-eastern extremities of the island remain residential today, and the latter still hold some vestiges of the 16th-century canons’ houses.