Geography Connections: Take 5

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NIE ACTIVITY

GEOGRAPHY Connections
This yearlong series is presented in collaboration with the Connecticut Geographic Alliance. For more information about NIE visit www.courantnie.com or call 241-3144.

PARIS, France
Kathleen Ryan, DID YOU KNOW?
Connecticut Geographic Alliance
An increasingly popular way to get
CITY VIEW: around Paris is by bicycle. There are
Bonjour! Welcome to Paris, the City of Light! Paris, located 440 kilometers (more than 250 miles) of
on the Seine River, is the capital and largest city of France. bicycle paths and routes in Paris. The
The Parisii people had lived in the area for centuries when
city has a bicycle-sharing system called
the Romans arrived here in 52 BCE and established a
permanent settlement on an island in the Seine River. Velib, with more than 20,000 public
Today Paris is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Let’s bicycles distributed at 1,450 parking
explore Paris and its many historic sites. stations around Paris.
Bicycle riders along the Boulevard de Montparnasse, Paris (Photo courtesy of Kathleen Ryan)

MAP IT OUT
TAKE 5
Paris is one of the major cities of the world to be visited by the Black Death, during the second
pandemic (worldwide) epidemic of 1347-1352. From 1347-1771 it is estimated that perhaps 50
million people perished as a result. Using a blank map of Eurasia map the following cities where
Location: Paris is located at 48 the plague was a scourge:
degrees North latitude 2 degrees East Istanbul, Messina (Sicily) 1347
Probably the most recognizable structure in Paris is the
longitude on the Seine River in northern Paris, Cairo, Barcelona 1348
Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 Paris Exposition or world’s
fair. It is not the tallest building in Paris. That designation France.
London, Vienna, Baghdad 1348-49
belongs to the Montparnasse Tower, completed in 1972 in
Place: Paris is known as the City of Stockholm, Budapest 1350
the Montparnasse neighborhood of Paris.
Light for its culture and its early use of Warsaw 1351
Another famous Paris building is the Cathedral of Notre modern street lighting. Moscow 1352
Dame, completed in the 14th century on the Ile de la Cite,
an island in the Seine River. It is renowned for its soaring Human/Environmental Interaction:
Gothic architecture of flying buttresses and stained glass Paris was redesigned as a city in the
windows. 19th century under the leadership
of Baron Haussmann. Entire
Questions of a geospatial nature
Paris’ bridges over the Seine River connect the Left Bank
with the Right Bank sides of the river. Two of the most neighborhoods of narrow medieval (the why of where):
famous bridges are the Alexander III Bridge and the Pont streets and their buildings were 1. What forms of transportation may have led to this accelerated spread of the disease?
Neuf or “New Bridge.” replaced with broad boulevards and 2. What was the cause or carrier of the disease?
Paris is famed for its broad boulevards and avenues. The Neoclassical buildings that are so 3. Trace the possible route the disease may have taken to spread over Europe.
most famous is the mile-long Champs-Elysees, which runs famous today. 4. List other pandemics that have occurred in world history.
from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde. This
Movement: Besides being the fourth Source: National Geographic Almanac of World History, Patricia Daniels and Stephen
avenue is lined with theaters, cafés and restaurants, luxury Hyslop,
specialty shops, and famous buildings such as the Grand largest port in France, Paris is a major Washington, DC, National Geographic, c. 2006
Palais. rail, highway, and air transportation
center. Paris’ train station Le Gard
du Nord is the busiest train station in
Europe. The city’s subway system,
Community Connections Activity
Use the Internet to discover 15 historic sites of Paris and locate these on a city map of Paris.
Le Metro, opened in 1900. Orly, Then write a travelogue explaining why each site is historically and culturally important to
Paris-Charles de Gaulle, and le Bourget Paris, to France, and to the world. Include photographs of each site.
Airports serve the city.
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/600/
Region: Paris is the political, cultural, http://mappery.com/maps/Paris-France-Tourist-Map-4.jpg
and economic center of France. It
is the home of UNESCO, the United NEXT PAGE - December 6th
Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization. For students who are blind, learning disabled or print challenged, visit CRIS Radio at
http://www.chrisradio.org and click Kids On-Demand for a free audio version of Geography Connections.

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