1st arrondissement (Louvre)

The 1st arrondissement, officially called Louvre, stretches along the Right Bank of the Seine from the Place de la Concorde to Châtelet and includes the western part of the Île de la Cité. It covers about 1.8 km² and is divided into four administrative districts (quartiers): Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, Halles, Palais-Royal and Place-Vendôme.

With 15,114 residents (legal population for 2023, in force since 1 January 2026, Insee), it has the smallest population of the 20 arrondissements and, at roughly 8,300 people per km², the lowest density. Much of the land is taken up by monuments, gardens, shops and offices.

The 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th arrondissements form a single sector, Paris Centre, with one shared town hall: the Mairie de Paris Centre at 2 rue Eugène Spuller in the 3rd. That is where you go for civil status documents, identity cards and passports by appointment, and for childcare and school enrolment requests.

• The Louvre and the Tuileries: the Louvre museum and the Tuileries garden run along the Seine from the Louvre's courtyards to the Place de la Concorde. Rue de Rivoli, with its arcades, forms the northern edge.
• Palais-Royal: the arcaded garden of the Palais-Royal, a national estate, is a quiet enclave a few steps from the Louvre. The streets around it and Place Vendôme are lined with high-end shops and hotels.
• Les Halles: the site of the former central food market is now the Forum des Halles, a largely underground shopping centre above the Châtelet–Les Halles station, with a large public garden (Jardin Nelson-Mandela) on top. The surrounding streets are busy pedestrian shopping streets.
• Île de la Cité (west): the Sainte-Chapelle and the Conciergerie stand within the Palais de la Cité complex. Further west are the Pont Neuf, the triangular Place Dauphine and the Square du Vert-Galant at the island's tip.

Residential life is concentrated in the smaller streets around Les Halles, the Palais-Royal and Place Dauphine. Visitors far outnumber residents for most of the day.

Few places in Paris are better connected.

• Châtelet–Les Halles: the RER A, B and D lines stop at Châtelet–Les Halles, linked underground to Châtelet métro station (lines 1, 4, 7, 11 and 14). Line 11 stops at Châtelet on the border with the 4th.
• Métro: line 1 runs under rue de Rivoli (Louvre–Rivoli, Palais Royal–Musée du Louvre, Tuileries). Line 7 serves Pont Neuf, Palais Royal and Pyramides, line 14 Pyramides and Châtelet, and line 4 Les Halles and Châtelet. Concorde (lines 1, 8, 12) and Madeleine (8, 12, 14) are on the western edge.
• RER C runs along the opposite bank of the Seine (Musée d'Orsay, Saint-Michel–Notre-Dame), a short walk across the bridges.

The 1st is inside the limited traffic zone (zone à trafic limité, ZTL) introduced in Paris Centre on 5 November 2024: motor vehicles may enter only to reach an address inside the zone, and through traffic is banned with some exceptions. Bicycles are not affected. Walking and cycling are the easiest ways to get around.

Homes here are almost all flats in older buildings. In the 2023 census (Insee), 73% of main residences were in buildings completed before 1919, and 58% had one or two rooms.

Of the 13,900 dwellings counted, only about two-thirds were main residences: 22% were second homes or occasional-use flats and 12% were vacant, compared with 10% and 10% for Paris as a whole. Among main residences, 63% were rented (Paris: 62%), including 14% let furnished and 8% social housing (Paris: 18%).

In practice, few unfurnished long-term rentals come onto the market, and furnished lets are common. Rent control (encadrement des loyers) applies: for most private leases the base rent may not exceed the increased reference rent for the quartier, the number of rooms, the construction period and whether the flat is furnished. Check any offer with the City of Paris tool before you sign. The rent observatory OLAP publishes estimated market rents by quartier for early 2026.

Relatively few families live here: children under 15 made up 9.7% of residents in the 2023 census, against 12.8% across Paris. The large public gardens are the main asset. The Tuileries and the Palais-Royal garden are a short walk from most homes, and the Jardin Nelson-Mandela above the Forum des Halles is the largest city-run green space in the arrondissement.

Requests for a municipal crèche place and enrolment in a public nursery or primary school are made through the Mairie de Paris Centre. Public schools are allocated by home address. See our guides on childcare and schools for how places are allocated.