The Île de la Cité is one of two remaining natural islands in the Seine within the city of Paris (the other being the Île Saint-Louis). It is the centre of Paris and the location where the medieval city was refounded.

The western end has held a palace since Merovingian times, and its eastern end since the same period has been consecrated to religion, especially after the 10th-century construction of a cathedral preceding today's Notre-Dame. The land between the two was, until the 1850s, largely residential and commercial, but has since been filled by the city's Prefecture de Police, Palais de Justice, Hôtel-Dieu hospital, and Tribunal de commerce. Only the westernmost and northeastern extremities of the island remain residential today, and the latter preserves some vestiges of its 16th-century canon's houses. As of 2013, the island's population was 981. The Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation, a memorial to the 200,000 people deported from Vichy France to the Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War, is located at the upriver end of the island.

From early times wooden bridges linked the island to the riverbanks on either side, the Grand Pont (the Pont au Change) spanning the wider reach to the Right Bank, and the Petit Pont spanning the narrower crossing to the Left Bank. The first bridge rebuilt in stone (in 1378) was at the site of the present Pont Saint-Michel, but ice floes carried it away with the houses that had been built on it in 1408. The Grand Pont or Pont Notre-Dame, also swept away at intervals by floodwaters, and the Petit Pont, were rebuilt by Fra Giovanni Giocondo at the beginning of the 16th century. The six arches of the Pont Notre-Dame supported gabled houses, some of half-timbered construction, until all were demolished in 1786.

The Île de la Cité remains the heart of Paris. All road distances in France are calculated from the 0 km point located in the Place du Parvis de Notre-Dame, the square facing Notre-Dame's pair of western towers.

Three medieval buildings remain on the Île de la Cité:

Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, built from 1163 on the site of a church dedicated to Saint Étienne, which in turn occupied a sacred pagan site of Roman times. During the French Revolution the cathedral was badly damaged, then restored by Viollet-le-Duc. The Cathedral was damaged in a fire on 15 April 2019, while undergoing the initial stages of a massive renovation- materials from the renovation are currently believed to have started the devastating, large fire.
Louis IX's Sainte-Chapelle (1245), built as a reliquary to house the Crown of Thorns and a piece of the True Cross, enclosed within the mid-19th century Palais de Justice.
Conciergerie prison, where Marie Antoinette awaited execution in 1793.

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