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Fourteen facts you didn't know about the streets of Paris

Oliver Gee
Oliver Gee - [email protected]
Fourteen facts you didn't know about the streets of Paris
Avenue Carnot in the 17th arrondissement. Photo: Dimitry B/WikiCommons

How well do you know Paris? Here are fourteen facts about the streets of the City of Light - from the longest street to the shortest... and the most expensive on the Monopoly board.

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There are a total of 6,100 streets in Paris...

Rue de l'Abreuvoir in Montmartre.Photo: Loïc Lagarde/Flickr

And 13,260 crossroads.

Rue Montorgueuil in the 1st and 2nd. Photo: Jean-Christophe Benoist/WikiCommons
 
The steepest street is Rue Gasnier-Guy in the 20th arrondissement, not far from the Père Lachaise cemetery. The street is listed at 17.4 degrees.
 
Photo: Google Street View
 
The highest point on a Paris street is 148.45 metres above sea level, and that's on Rue du Télégraphe in the 20th arrondissement. Despite its considerable height, there aren't any spectacular views from the street itself. 
 
Photo: Google Street View
 
The longest street - at over 4.3 kilometres - is the rue Vaugirard in the 15th arrondissement. 

It may look like just a few steps, but the shortest street in the city - at just 5.75 metres - is Rue des Degrés in the 2nd arrondissement.

The newest street in the city was almost named Rue Steve Jobs, until the controversial decision was overruled.

Instead, it will be named after computer scientists Alan Turing and Grace Murray Hooper.

It will be in the 13th arrondissement alongside the Halle Freyssinet, a start-up incubator set to host 1,000 small businesses.

An impression of "Rue Steve Jobs" and the man himself. Photo: The Local/AFP

The most expensive street on the Paris version of Monopoly is Rue de la Paix, in the 1st and 2nd arrondissements. 
 
Photo: Mbzt/WikiCommons
 
The first street on the Paris Monopoly board is Boulevard de Belleville, which joins the 11th and 20th arrondissements.
 
Photo: Citizen 59/Flickr
 
The narrowest street - at just 1.8 metres wide - is the Rue du Chat-qui-Pêche ("Fishing Cat Street") near the Shakespeare and Company bookshop in the 5th arrondissement. 

The widest street - at a whopping 120 metres - is Avenue Foch in the 16th arrondissment. It's one of the most prestigious streets in the capital. 

Photo: Chivista/WikiCommons
 
The most expensive street to buy a home is Avenue Montaigne at €20,000 per square metre, at least according to a recent study by real estate consultancy Knight Frank.   
 
The street, just off the Champs-Elysées, is home to unending high end fashion brands including Dior, Chanel, and Valentino.
 
The Plaza-Athénée Hotel on the Avenue Montaine. Photo: Alexander Baranov/Flickr
 
Just 2.6 percent of the city's streets are named after women, a fact that prompted one feminist group to secretly "rename" 60 streets one warm night in August last year
 
"Quai de Nina Simone" near the Notre Dame Cathedral. Photo: The Local
 
The oldest street in Paris is (probably) Rue Saint-Jacques in the fifth arrondissement. 
 
The north-south street was around when the Romans were in charge 2000 years ago, when Paris was called Lutetia. 
 
Photo: Thierry Bezecourt/WikiCommons
 
Want to read more about the streets of Paris? Check out the ten Paris streets you just have to walk down and the ten that you should really avoid
 
Photo: Stéphanie Kilgast/Flickr

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