. On 11 October 1795, Paris was divided into
twelve arrondissements. They were numbered from west to east. The numbers 1–9 were on the
Right Bank of the
Seine. The numbers were 10–12 on the
Left Bank. Each arrondissement was subdivided into four
quartiers, which corresponded to the 48 original districts created in 1790. In the late 1850s, Emperor
Napoleon III and the Prefect of the
Seine Baron
Haussmann developed a plan to incorporate several of the surrounding communes into the Paris jurisdiction. In 1859, Parliament passed the necessary legislation, and the expansion took effect when the law was promulgated on 3 November 1859. City taxes were extended to the new neighborhoods in July 1860. The previous twelve arrondissements were done away with, and
twenty new arrondissements were created. In historical records, when it is necessary to distinguish between the two systems, the original arrondissements are indicated by adding the term
ancienne ("former" or "old"), for example,
2ème ancienne or
7ème anc. Before the reorganization, non-married couples who
lived together were said to have "married at the town hall of the 13th arrondissement" ("
se marier à la mairie du 13e arrondissement"), as a jocular reference to there being no 13th. When Haussmann released his plan for the new boundaries and numbering system, residents of
Passy objected because it placed them in the new 13th arrondissement. The mayor of Passy, Jean-Frédéric Possoz, devised the numbering of the arrondissements in a spiral pattern, beginning on the Right Bank, which put Passy in the
16th. This system turned the Louvre area, which contained the
Tuileries Palace and other imperial palaces, into the
1st. The Gobelins area became the
13th instead. In early 2016, mayor
Anne Hidalgo proposed that the first four arrondissements should have their administrations merged. The
Council of Paris approved this in February 2016. The four have a combined population of about 100,000, with the
1st,
2nd,
4th, and
3rd arrondissements in that order being the four smallest in Paris. In August 2016, the matter was taken up in the
National Assembly, and approved in February 2017. In October 2018, in a postal referendum, the town hall of the 3rd arrondissement was chosen to house the new shared administration. The name "
Paris Centre" was chosen for the sector. In June 2020, the reform was implemented, the day after the second round of the
2020 Paris municipal election. The four arrondissements now share a mayor and a district council. The four arrondissements continue to exist, but are no longer used as administrative and electoral sectors. ==Logos of the town halls==