Where to live in Paris, for British arrivals

Bastille & Bercy (11e–12e)Central

The old furniture-making quarter, still full of the courtyards the workshops used, with the Coulée verte running along a disused viaduct above it — the elevated park New York copied for the High Line. Central, well connected and slightly cheaper than the Marais across the road.

Grands Boulevards & Canal (9e–10e)Central

Iron footbridges, plane trees and the highest concentration of people in their twenties drinking on a kerb anywhere in Paris. The canal has been the city's fashionable quarter for fifteen years and shows no sign of stopping.

Latin Quarter & Saint-Germain (5e–6e)Central

The Sorbonne, the Panthéon and the Jardin du Luxembourg, with eight hundred years of students behind it. Quieter than its reputation now that the tourist restaurants have taken the lower streets, and still the best-located place in Paris to be young and reading something.

Paris Centre (1er–4e)Central

The one part of central Paris that escaped Haussmann, so the streets are medieval and the buildings are older than the boulevards around them. It is the city's gay quarter, its historic Jewish quarter and its most concentrated run of galleries and boutiques, all in about a square kilometre.

Paris Centre (1er–4e)Central

The dead centre of the transport network — Châtelet–Les Halles is the largest underground station in the world — with the pedestrianised Rue Montorgueil market street running north from it. Unbeatable for getting anywhere and relentless for living in.

Bastille & Bercy (11e–12e)Central

The 11th is where Paris in its thirties actually lives, and Oberkampf is its spine — bars three deep along one street, the best natural wine in the city, and enough ordinary residential streets behind it to sleep. The most reliable answer for a first flat in Paris.

Latin Quarter & Saint-Germain (5e–6e)Central

Once the intellectual centre of Europe and now one of its most expensive shopping districts, which is a trade most residents seem content with. Beautiful, extremely quiet after nine, and priced accordingly.

Grands Boulevards & Canal (9e–10e)Central

The slope below Montmartre, rebranded SoPi about a decade ago and genuinely transformed by it — Rue des Martyrs is the best food street in Paris and the old red-light strip above it has become cocktail bars. Central, steep and increasingly expensive.

Batignolles & Montmartre (17e–18e)Inner

A village square, a covered market and the Parc Clichy-Batignolles built on the old rail yards, which made this the most sought-after family quarter in Paris over about a decade. It is what people mean when they say a Paris neighbourhood feels like a small town.

The North-east (19e–20e)Inner

The most genuinely mixed part of Paris and the best value inside the périphérique — a Chinese and North African quarter with a large artist population layered on top, on a hill with a park at the summit and a view down the whole city.

Bastille & Bercy (11e–12e)Inner

The old wine warehouses on the eastern riverbank, converted into a park, a cinema complex and a pedestrian street of restaurants. It is one of the newest parts of Paris and it feels like it — planned, green, quiet and slightly bloodless.

The South (13e, 14e, 15e)Inner

A hill of low houses and cobbled streets that the Haussmann rebuilding missed entirely, sitting above the tower blocks of the 13th. It looks like a village, it drinks like a student quarter, and it is the best-value genuinely charming address in Paris.

The North-east (19e–20e)Inner

Wrapped around the most dramatic park in Paris — a former gypsum quarry turned into cliffs, a lake and a temple on a rock — and increasingly the answer for people who want space, greenery and a central commute without paying Batignolles prices.

The North-east (19e–20e)Inner

The old village of Charonne survives as a church, a square and a couple of streets that look nothing like the rest of Paris, wrapped around the largest cemetery in the city. It is where the 11e crowd moved when Oberkampf became expensive, and it is following the same path.

The South (13e, 14e, 15e)Inner

The 15e is the largest arrondissement by population and the one nobody outside Paris can name, which is roughly how its residents like it. Rue du Commerce is a proper market street, the Eiffel Tower is at the end of the road, and almost nothing ever happens.

The North-east (19e–20e)Inner

The top of the hill above Belleville, with a market street, a church square and the most village-like atmosphere left inside the boundary. Métro 11 was extended and modernised recently, which has done for Jourdain what the tram did for Saint-Ouen.

The South (13e, 14e, 15e)Inner

The old tapestry quarter between the Latin Quarter and Chinatown, with three métro lines under Place d'Italie and the Manufacture des Gobelins still working after four hundred years. Central, unshowy and among the better-value addresses on the left bank.

Batignolles & Montmartre (17e–18e)Inner

A hill with a village on it that happens to be inside Paris, and the only part of the city where you can be genuinely lost on a staircase. The north slope towards Lamarck is where people actually live; the south slope belongs to the coach parties.

The South (13e, 14e, 15e)Inner

The tower is universally disliked and the station beneath it is one of the best-connected points in France. Behind it, the 14th is quiet, residential and among the most liveable parts of central Paris — with the catacombs underneath, which is less of a problem than it sounds.

Bastille & Bercy (11e–12e)Inner

Four métro lines and the RER A meet under one square, which makes Nation one of the best-connected addresses in Paris and one of the least talked about. The streets behind it are quiet, residential and noticeably cheaper than Bastille fifteen minutes west.

The West (7e, 8e, 16e)Inner

The 16th is where wealthy Paris lives, and it is as quiet, as safe and as unexciting as that suggests. The Bois de Boulogne on one side and the river on the other, large Haussmannian flats, and international schools — the standard landing spot for a corporate relocation with children.

The West (7e, 8e, 16e)Inner

Behind the Arc de Triomphe on the quieter northern side, with a covered market, a run of good food shops on Rue Poncelet and the RER A five minutes away. It is the practical half of the 17e, and considerably cheaper than the 8e it adjoins.

Petite couronne (inner suburbs)Outer

The largest suburb in France and effectively an extension of the 16th, with the Bois de Boulogne on its northern edge and a great many corporate headquarters inside it. Safe, well-served, expensive for a suburb and popular with relocating families.

Petite couronne (inner suburbs)Outer

South of the boundary on Métro 7, with a long communist municipal history, some genuinely strange 1970s housing experiments and rents among the lowest on the network. The Grand Paris Express will change it considerably when the new lines open.

Petite couronne (inner suburbs)Outer

Immediately north-west of the boundary and effectively an extension of the 17e, with a dense cluster of corporate headquarters and a great deal of 1990s and 2000s housing. Practical, well connected and priced below the arrondissements it touches.

Petite couronne (inner suburbs)Outer

Just outside the périphérique on Métro 9 and comfortably the most interesting suburb of Paris — a former market-gardening town that absorbed the artists and families the 11th priced out, and now has the bars and workshops to prove it. Widely described as the 21st arrondissement.

Petite couronne (inner suburbs)Outer

The canal continues north out of Paris into Pantin, and the old industrial buildings along it have become studios, offices and lofts. Hermès and the Centre National de la Danse are here; so is a good deal of ordinary social housing, and the two coexist unevenly.

Petite couronne (inner suburbs)Outer

The Puces de Saint-Ouen flea market, the 2024 Olympic village converted to housing, and the Métro 14 extension that put it eight minutes from Saint-Lazare. It is changing faster than anywhere else in the inner suburbs.

Petite couronne (inner suburbs)Outer

The eastern counterpart to Boulogne: a château, the largest park in Paris on its doorstep, Métro 1 and the RER A, and a small-town centre that families move out of the 11th and 12th to reach. Expensive for a suburb and consistently the most sought-after one on this side.

Petite couronne (inner suburbs)Fringe

A royal town at the western end of the RER A, with a château, a terrace overlooking the Seine and a forest of thirty-five square kilometres behind it. It has the largest established British community in Île-de-France and the schools that go with it, which is why so many corporate relocations with children land here.