Paris Métro stations and what each one is known for

Paris names most of its stations after the place above them, so the name on the map is usually the sight. This is a short guide to the stops people ask about most, with one picture and a few lines each. Four of them have their own exit guides, and a few have longer stories linked below.

Charles de Gaulle-Étoile

Twelve avenues meet at Place Charles-de-Gaulle, and the Arc de Triomphe stands in the middle. It was begun in 1806 for Napoleon, finished in 1836 under Louis-Philippe, and is about 50 metres high. Read the exit guide.

Trocadéro

The Jardins du Trocadéro look across the Seine at the Eiffel Tower over pools and lawns, with the dome of Les Invalides in the distance.

Bir-Hakeim

The Métro runs on a bridge here, with the Eiffel Tower showing through the stone arch. See stations that are sights in themselves.

Invalides

The Hôtel des Invalides, with its courtyards and golden dome, was founded by Louis XIV for wounded soldiers.

Concorde

Place de la Concorde and its obelisk, plus a platform with the Declaration of the Rights of Man spelled out on the wall. Details in the sights story.

Madeleine

La Madeleine is a neoclassical church built like a temple, ringed by Corinthian columns and topped by a sculpted pediment.

Opéra

The Palais Garnier opened in 1875. Its main front has columns, carved medallions and gilded lettering reading Académie nationale de musique.

Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre

The station for the Louvre's entrance, and for the arcades of the Palais-Royal beside it. The exit guide says which way to go.

Châtelet

The Fontaine du Palmier, built in 1808 to celebrate Napoleon's victories, is topped by a gilded Victory, and behind it the Flamboyant Gothic Tour Saint-Jacques is all that remains of a church destroyed in 1797. See the exit guide.

Cité

The flower market on the Île de la Cité sits right next to the station, and the east end of the Sainte-Chapelle, whose upper chapel was consecrated in 1248, is about 90 metres away.

Saint-Michel

The Fontaine Saint-Michel, built around 1860, shows the archangel overcoming the devil above its basins. The English-language bookshop Shakespeare and Company is less than 300 metres from the station.

Hôtel de Ville

The Hôtel de Ville was burned during the Commune in 1871 and rebuilt in the 1870s and 1880s in Renaissance style inside the surviving walls. A Guimard entrance used to stand here before it was moved to Abbesses.

Bastille

The July Column, inaugurated in 1840, commemorates the Trois Glorieuses of 1830 and is topped by Auguste Dumont's gilded Spirit of Freedom.

Gare de Lyon

The 67-metre clock tower was built for the 1900 World's Fair by Marius Toudoire. Inside, the Train Bleu restaurant, opened in 1901 and listed as a historic monument in 1972, is decorated with painted ceilings and gilded chandeliers.

Gare du Nord

The stone front of the Gare du Nord opened in 1865, with a large arched glass window, a clock and statues crowning the facade.

République and Nation

The monument on Place de la République is a tall statue of Marianne on a stone base with a bronze lion at its foot, about sixty metres from the station. At Nation, Jules Dalou's bronze group The Triumph of the Republic was inaugurated in 1899.

Père Lachaise

Oscar Wilde's tomb is a large block of stone carrying his name, now protected by a glass screen.

Blanche

The Moulin Rouge, the cabaret with its red windmill, opened in 1889 on Boulevard de Clichy right next to Place Blanche.

Abbesses

Place des Abbesses lies at the foot of Montmartre, and the station has a Hector Guimard entrance. Details in the Guimard story.

Denfert-Rochereau

A bronze replica of Bartholdi's Lion of Belfort stands in the middle of Place Denfert-Rochereau, and the Catacombs entrance is about thirty metres from the station.

That is twenty-one stops out of more than three hundred. The rest are on the lines page, and each one is a station you can type in the game.