Every design for Paris

Paris sits on a loop of the Seine, in the middle of the basin that bears its name, between the points where the Marne and the Oise join the river. That bend of water is the first thing you see on a map of the city, and everything else seems to arrange itself around it: the islands, the quays, the twenty arrondissements spreading outwards like the rings of a tree.

The Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris stands on the island where the Parisii settled and where Roman Lutèce grew; a short walk away, the Arènes de Lutèce still hide behind ordinary apartment blocks. Across the river, the Conciergerie and the Palais Royal speak of kings and revolutions, while the Obélisque de Louxor marks one of the great open squares. Baron Haussmann's renovation gave Paris its wide boulevards and uniform stone façades, the look the world still pictures when it hears the name City of Light. Add the Art Nouveau entrances of the Métro and the endless museums, and you have a capital that is instantly recognisable from any angle.

If Paris is your city, whether by birth, by study or by a long stay that never quite ended, you know its streets by heart and its river by every bridge. This one is for you, and for the arrondissement you still call home.