Arc de Triomphe — triumphal arch
ZeusUpsistos · CC BY-SA 4.0

Arc de Triomphe

Arc de triomphe de l'Étoile

  • 2 min read
  • 48.874° N 2.295° E

Interesting facts

  • In 1810, with the arch barely above its foundations, Napoleon had a wooden mock-up of the finished monument put up for his entry into Paris with his new bride.
  • The pilot first chosen to fly through the arch in 1919, Jean Navarre, was killed in a training crash, and Charles Godefroy made the flight instead.
  • Reportedly, on the day the Battle of Verdun began in 1916, the sword held by Liberty in La Marseillaise broke off, and the relief was hidden under tarpaulins.
  • From 1882 to 1886 a plaster chariot group by Alexandre Falguière stood on top as a trial; it decayed in the weather, and the arch was never crowned again.
  • The Unknown Soldier was originally meant to rest in the Panthéon, but a public letter-writing campaign brought him to the arch instead.
  • After visiting the flame here in 1961, Jacqueline Kennedy asked for an eternal flame at President Kennedy's grave in Arlington following his assassination.
  • The face of Liberty in François Rude's La Marseillaise was used on the belt buckle worn by Marshals of France.
  • It was the tallest triumphal arch in the world until 1938, and Pyongyang's Arch of Triumph, completed in 1982, is modelled on it but slightly taller.
  • In 2021 the arch was wrapped in silvery-blue fabric and red rope, a posthumous realisation of a project Christo and Jeanne-Claude had planned since the early 1960s.
  • The monument carries the names of 158 battles of the Revolution and Empire, yet leaves out every battle of Napoleon's Hundred Days, Waterloo included.

Why it is worth it

The Arc de Triomphe is less a gateway than a hub: twelve avenues radiate from the traffic circle at Place Charles de Gaulle, and the arch sits at the centre of the star they form, closing the western end of the Champs-Élysées. It belongs to the long ceremonial line that runs from the Louvre to the Grande Arche at La Défense, and from its roof that axis is laid out like a diagram. Paris itself, a capital that has been redrawn by kings, emperors and prefects, rarely shows its planning as clearly as it does here.

Napoleon ordered the arch in 1806, after Austerlitz, to honour the armies of the Revolution and the Empire. Jean-François Chalgrin designed it on the model of the Arch of Titus in Rome, but the foundations alone took two years, Chalgrin died in 1811, and work stalled under the restored Bourbons. It was finally finished under Louis-Philippe and inaugurated in 1836. The result is enormous even by Parisian standards: 49.5 metres high, almost 45 metres wide and 22 metres deep, with a main vault more than 29 metres tall. In 1919 a pilot, Charles Godefroy, flew a biplane straight through it.

The sculpture repays close attention. Of the four great groups on the pillars, the most famous is François Rude's Departure of the Volunteers of 1792, known as La Marseillaise, with a winged Liberty shouting above the marching men. Thirty shields along the attic carry the names of victories, and the inner walls list 660 officers, the names of those killed in battle underlined. Beneath the vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a French soldier of the First World War laid here in January 1921. Its flame has been rekindled every evening at 6:30 pm since 1923, a short ceremony carried out by veterans' associations, and military parades now pass around the arch rather than through it.

Inside one of the pillars a spiral staircase climbs to a museum hall in the attic, with models and displays on the monument's construction; around 40 more steps lead to the rooftop terrace, 284 steps in all from the ground, and lifts are available. From the top, the radiating avenues and the long historic axis read like a map of the city.

Getting there

The arch stands in western Paris where the 8th, 16th and 17th arrondissements meet. Charles de Gaulle–Étoile, served by the Métro and the RER, is directly below the square. Do not try to cross the traffic circle on foot: pedestrian underpasses lead to the arch from the Champs-Élysées and the Avenue de la Grande Armée. The nearest airport is Paris-Orly (ORY), about 17 km away.

Plan your visit

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Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Paris 29The Most Beautiful Places in Île-de-France 36The Most Beautiful Places in France 179The Most Impressive Triumphal Arches 4The Most Beautiful Squares, Streets and Monuments in Île-de-France 7The Most Beautiful 19th-Century Squares, Streets and Monuments 8The Most Beautiful Squares, Streets and Monuments in France 16The Most Beautiful Squares, Streets and Monuments 173

From the encyclopaedia

The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile, often simply called the Arc de Triomphe, is one of the most famous monuments in Paris, France. It is located at the western end of the Champs-Élysées, at the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle—formerly known as the Place de l'Étoile—named for the star-shaped configuration formed by the convergence of twelve radiating avenues. The monument is situated at the intersection of three arrondissements: the 16th, the 17th, and the 8th. Commissioned to honor those who fought and died for France during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the Arc bears the names of French victories and generals engraved on its inner and outer surfaces. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I, marked by an eternal flame commemorating unidentified fallen soldiers.

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