29 Facts About Paris Metro

1. Paris Metro is a major rail, highway, and air transport hub.

2. Paris Metro hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and will host the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games.

3. University of Paris Metro, founded in the 12th century, is often called the Sorbonne after one of its original medieval colleges.

4. Paris Metro is the departement with the highest proportion of highly educated people.

5. In 1911, the dance hall Olympia Paris Metro invented the grand staircase as a settling for its shows, competing with its great rival, the Folies Bergere.

6. Paris Metro hosts one of the largest science museums in Europe, the Cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie at La Villette.

7. The Golden Age of the School of Paris Metro ended between the two world wars.

8. Paris Metro was central to the development of Romanticism in art, with painters such as Gericault.

9. Majority of Paris Metro's salaried employees fill 370,000 businesses services jobs, concentrated in the north-western 8th, 16th and 17th arrondissements.

10. Paris Metro has a typical Western European oceanic climate which is affected by the North Atlantic Current.

11. Paris Metro is located in northern central France, in a north-bending arc of the river Seine whose crest includes two islands, the Ile Saint-Louis and the larger Ile de la Cite, which form the oldest part of the city.

12. The first railway line to Paris Metro opened in 1837, beginning a new period of massive migration from the provinces to the city.

13. Paris Metro was the financial capital of continental Europe, the primary European centre of book publishing and fashion and the manufacture of fine furniture and luxury goods.

14. Paris Metro was the centre of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity known as the Age of Enlightenment.

15. Paris Metro hosted the Olympic Games in 1900, 1924 and will host the 2024 Summer Olympics.

16. Paris Metro hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros.

17. Paris Metro is a key network that binds the city together, running for miles from East to West, North to South.

18. Grand Paris Metro Express will dramatically improve transportation in the metropolitan area starting in 2024 with the inauguration of circular line 15.

19. Grand Paris Metro Express is a massive extension of the old metropolitan network to Grand Paris.

20. Paris Metro is the city's lifeline and connects the farthest reaches of Paris to the bustling city centre.

21. Paris Metro has a cultural significance that goes well beyond the city of Paris.

22. Paris Metro is designed to provide local, point-to-point service in Paris proper and service into the city from some close suburbs.

23. Paris Metro built all lines to the same dimensions as its original lines.

24. On 26 June 2012 it was announced that the Paris Metro would get Wi-Fi in most stations.

25. Paris Metro has 214 kilometres of track and 302 stations, 62 connecting between lines.

26. Paris Metro planned three new lines and extensions of most lines to the inner suburbs, despite the reluctance of Parisians.

27. On 20 April 1896, Paris Metro adopted the Fulgence Bienvenue project, which was to serve only the city proper of Paris.

28. Paris Metro is operated by the Regie autonome des transports parisiens, a public transport authority that operates part of the RER network, bus services, light rail lines and many bus routes.

29. Paris Metro is the abbreviated name of the company that originally operated most of the network: La Compagnie du chemin de fer metropolitain de Paris, shortened to "Le Metropolitain".