It's War on the Streets of Paris

Une Histoire de Rue is a new interactive map which explores the connections between Paris street names and military history. Around 15% of Paris' streets have names which are related to battles, soldiers and/or resistance fighters. This new interactive map allows you to quickly see the extent to which military history is reflected and commemorated in the names of Paris' roads.

On the map streets which have a name with a military focus are shown as colored lines. Streets which are named for important battles are colored green. The streets colored blue are named after generals and other important military figures. Heroes of the French resistance are commemorated in the streets colored red on the map.

As you explore the map you will find that certain districts of Paris have more militaristic sounding streets than others. For example the areas around the Arc de Triomphe (commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1806 after his victory at the Battle of Austerlitz) and the Bastille-Arsenal (the area around the former site of the Bastille fortress) both have a large concentration of streets bearing military related names.

Une Histoire de Rue (Street History) is also a website which allows you to create your own categories of street names. For example you can use Une Histoire de Rue to create your own map of Paris (or any other city) showing all the streets named for artists and writers. If you click on the 'Import' button you can load street data onto the map from a CSV file. You can then create your own categories of color-coded streets on the interactive map. The open-source code for the map is also available on GitHub.

Le Figaro has also created a map of Parisienne street names. In particular it has examined how many Parisian roads were named for people and which historical periods those people are from. It then colored those roads on a map of Paris to show which historical period is most commemorated in Paris' roads.

In What Paris Street Names Reveal the newspaper says that a total of 2,500 streets in Paris are named for people. Only 15% of these roads are named for people born before 1700. One reason for this is that after the French revolution street names referring to the monarchy or Catholicism were banned. 1700-1850 is the most represented period in French history in the street names of Paris. 56% of streets in Paris named for people are named after figures from this historical period.

Le Figaro discovered that political figures were most likely to be commemorated by having a Paris street named for them. The next most commemorated group are writers, followed by military leaders.