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Though the remains of Neolithic settlements have been found dating back to 4500 BC, the first inhabitants are considered to be a Celtic tribe called the Parisii, who settled on the Ile de la Cité in the 3rd century BC. Hunters and fishermen, they named the village Lutetia, meaning “boatyard on a river”. The tribe minted their own gold coins and a pagan altar was found beneath Notre-Dame.

The Romans conquered the Parisii in 52 BC and destroyed their city. After rebuilding it as their administrative centre, they founded their own town on the Left Bank. The baths in the Hôtel de Cluny (see Musée National du Moyen-Age) and the amphitheatre in rue Monge are the only remains. In AD 360 the Roman prefect was declared emperor and Lutetia was renamed Paris, after its original inhabitants.

Roman rule weakened under Barbarian attacks. In 450 the prayers of a young nun, Geneviève, were credited with saving the city from invasion by Attila the Hun and she became patron saint of Paris. But in 476 the Franks captured the city. They converted it to Christianity and made Paris the capital of their new kingdom, France.

In 751 the Carolingian dynasty became rulers of France when Pepin the Short ascended the throne. His heir Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800 and moved the capital to Aix-La-Chapelle. Paris fell into decline until nobleman Hugues Capet became king in 987, moving the capital back to his home city.

Henri III named his son-in-law, Henri of Navarre, as his heir, but when the king was assassinated in 1589, Catholics refused to accept a Protestant monarch. After a four-year war, Henri converted to Catholicism and entered Paris as the first Bourbon king. He, too, was assassinated in 1610, leaving his young son Louis XIII to usher in Le Grand Siècle (Grand Century), as the 17th century later came to be known.

Following decades of excess by the monarchy and the gulf between rich and poor, Paris erupted with the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789 (see Top 10 Events in the French Revolution).

As Paris rose from the ashes of the Revolution, a young general from Corsica, Napoleon Bonaparte, saved the city from a royalist revolt, then led military victories in Italy and Egypt. He crowned himself Emperor of France in Notre-Dame in 1804 (see Napoleon).

In 1851, Napoleon’s nephew, Louis-Napoleon, seized power as Emperor Napoleon III. He appointed Baron Haussmann to oversee massive building works that transformed Paris into the most glorious city in Europe. The wide boulevards, many public buildings, parks, sewer system and the first department stores date from 1852 to 1870.

Following France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 (see Sacré-Coeur), many citizens rejected the harsh terms of the surrender and a left-wing group revolted, setting up the Paris Commune. But, after 72 days, government troops marched on the city. In a week of street fighting (21–28 May), much of the city burned and thousands of rebellious citizens were killed.

The Occupation of France by Germany during World War II were some of Paris’s darkest days, but the city was also the centre for the French Resistance. Allied forces liberated Paris on 25 August 1944; just two days earlier, the German commander Von Choltitz had ignored Adolf Hitler’s order to burn the city.