Paris getting bigger!

On 31st December 1859, approximately one million Parisians celebrated New Year’s Eve in the twelve “arrondissements“ of the city. The next day, it’s one million plus 700,000 Parisians who woke up with a hang over…

How does a city’s population double overnight? Napoleon III (nephew of Napoleon I) had decided to make Paris bigger, so the surrounding “faubourgs” were annexed to the city and became the eight additional “arrondissements”.

Interestingly, the lay out of the initial twelve districts differed from today’s. The numbering in the shape of a snail was adopted at that moment so that the unlucky number 13 would not be attributed to the wealthy neighborhood. It’s the working class area that got it… This is how superstition defined the map of Paris!