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Paris, city and capital of France, situated in the north-central part of the country. People were living on the site of the present-day city, located along the Seine River some 233 miles (375 km) upstream from the river’s mouth on the English Channel (La Manchu), by about 7600 BCE. The modern city has spread from the island (the Lie de la Cite) and far beyond both banks of the Seine. Paris occupies a central position in the rich agricultural region known as the Paris Basin, and it constitutes one of eight departments of the Lie-de-France administrative region. It is by far the country’s most important center of commerce and culture. Area city, 41 square miles (105 square km); metropolitan area 890 square miles (2,300 square km). Pop. (2020 est.) city, 2,145,906; (2020 est.) urban agglomeration, 10,858,874. Paris has for centuries been regarded as the main cultural powerhouse of the Western world, a magnet for artists and intellectuals and a place where new ideas originate and art reigns supreme. This notion was especially true in the early part of the 20th century, when the city was favored by numerous expatriate writers and artists, including Ernest Hemingway from the United States, James Joyce from Ireland, Pablo Picasso from Spain, and Amado Modigliani from Italy. The earliest evidence for human habitation in what is now the city of Paris dates from about 7600 BCE. By the end of the 3rd century BCE, a settlement had been built on the Lie de la Cite; it was inhabited by a Gallic tribe known as the Parisian. The first recorded name for the settlement was Lutetia (Latin: “Midwater-Dwelling”). When the Romans arrived, the Parisian were sufficiently organized and wealthy to have their own gold coinage. Julius Caesar wrote in his Commentaries (52 BCE) that the inhabitants burned their town rather than surrender it to the Romans. In the 1st century CE Lutetia grew as a Roman town and spread to the left bank of the Seine. The straight streets and the public buildings in this locale were characteristically Roman, including a forum, several baths, and an amphitheater.