After speaking briefly with a friend tonight, it occurred to me that those without French class are not familiar with the geography of Paris.  As Joachim said, one forgets "how natural it's for a french person, yet how strange it must be for a stranger, just to know how everything works." So.  Une petite leçon, mes chéris.

Paris is divided into twenty arrondissements, or little neighborhoods.  We might call them "districts" in the U.S.  Sort of like the boroughs of New York, except les arrondissements are much smaller.  The arrondissements begin with the Louvre, and continue by spiraling outward, like a cinnamon bun (or, if you want to be French-y, comme un escargot).  Notre Dame is essentially the heart of Paris (geographically, at least), since Paris's first inhabitants lived on the île de la Cité, and Notre Dame is nearly at the center.  The "cinnamon bun" arrangement makes sense in the context of such an old city; Paris's larger streets and boulevards are arranged circularly, rather than on a grid system. 

Often, when asked where you live, you reply with the number of your arrondissement as well as the metro stop nearest your residence.  Où habitez-vous?  Dans le treizième (13e).  Above every street sign in Paris is the number of its arrondissement.  You can also discover a location's arrondissement by examining its zipcode.  75005 is in the fifth, 75014 in the fourteenth, etc.



A fun fact about les arrondissements: each is required by French law to have an open-air market at least two days a week.  This means that you're never too far from fresh produce.  My room mate and I visit our market every week to stock up on cheap produce, which is often half the price of what you can find in supermarkets.

See a map and lots more information about les arrondissements here.