Old photos · France

Old photos of Paris

It starts in 1839, the year photography was announced, with a panorama of the Pont Neuf and the Louvre — and its busiest decade in the archive is the 1900s, the Paris of the Belle Époque.

27,345 photographs within 7 km of the centre · counted 25 September 2026

Time Portal's archive holds about 27,000 photographs of Paris, taken between 1839 and 2000, each pinned to the spot where the photographer stood. 27% of them date from 1955 or later and are free to browse at map.timeportal.app with no account; the older ones open with Pro. The oldest, dated 1839 in the archive, shows the Pont Neuf, the Louvre and the Quai de la Mégisserie in a panorama from the year photography was announced.

Photographs: 27,000
Oldest: 1839
Busiest decade: 1900s
Free, 1955 on: 27%

The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile in Paris, photographed in 1847 — The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile, 1847

How many photographs, decade by decade

The busiest decades for Paris are the 1900s and the 1910s — 5,734 and 4,405 photographs. 3,414 were taken before 1900. Everything from 1955 onward is free to open on the map; the older photographs are part of Pro.

Photographs of Paris in the Time Portal archive, within 7 km of the centre, by the year each was taken. Counted 25 September 2026.
Decade	Relative size	Photographs
before 1860		471
1860s		731
1870s		504
1880s		657
1890s		1,051
1900s		5,734
1910s		4,405
1920s		2,022
1930s		1,613
1940s		2,073
1950s		1,225
1960s		4,097
1970s		1,213
1980s		694
1990s		853

Where the photographs were taken

Counted in a small square around each place — about 300 metres each way — so a number is every photograph taken there, of the place itself or of the street beside it. Each place opens the map on that spot.

Place	Photos	Oldest
The Eiffel Tower	446	1868
Notre-Dame	942	1840
The Arc de Triomphe	323	1847
The Louvre	869	1841
Montmartre and Sacré-Cœur	636	1871
Place de la Concorde	626	1847

What changed

Paris changed most in the first decades of photography. Between 1853 and 1870 Baron Haussmann drove wide boulevards through the medieval centre, and the city hired a photographer to record the old streets before they went.

After that Paris kept its shape. The Commune began in March 1871 over the cannon parked on Montmartre; the Tuileries Palace, burned that May, was pulled down in 1883. The Eiffel Tower went up for the world's fair of 1889, and the Trocadéro palace built for the fair of 1878 was replaced by the Palais de Chaillot in 1937.

Rows of cannon parked on the Butte Montmartre in Paris in 1871 — Cannon on the Butte Montmartre, 1871

A man standing by traffic lights in front of Notre-Dame in Paris in 1950 — Traffic lights in front of Notre-Dame, 1950

Questions about old photos of Paris

Where can I see old photos of Paris on a map?

On Time Portal: about 27,000 photographs of Paris, each pinned where it was taken, most with the direction the camera faced. The map is free in any browser at map.timeportal.app — photographs from 1955 on need no account — and there is an app for iPhone and iPad.

What is the oldest photograph of Paris in the archive?

The oldest precisely dated photograph, from 1839, shows the Pont Neuf, the Louvre and the Quai de la Mégisserie in a panorama from the year photography was announced. 3,414 of the Paris photographs were taken before 1900.

Which years of Paris are best covered?

The 1900s, with 5,734 photographs, and the 1910s, with 4,405. 27% of the Paris photographs date from 1955 or later.

Open Paris on the map

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One place in Paris, across a century: The Eiffel Tower: Paris Then & Now. Other cities: Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kyiv, New York, Berlin, Prague, Tbilisi, Odesa, Riga, Rome, London. Or search any address on the map, or in the app.

The counts on this page are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 — credit Time Portal and link here. The photographs are not ours to license: they belong to their photographers and the archives that keep them.