La Defense - Paris, France
Posted by: 
manchanegra
N 48° 53.526 E 002° 14.274
31U E 444137 N 5415741
La Défense is a major business district at the westernmost extremity of the Paris urban area.
Waymark Code: WMCTAF
Location: Île-de-France, France
Date Posted: 10/10/2011
Views: 35
La Défense is a major business district of the Paris urban area. With a population of 20,000, it is centered in an orbital motorway straddling the Hauts-de-Seine département municipalities of Nanterre, Courbevoie and Puteaux. The district is at the westernmost extremity of Paris's 10 km long Historical Axis, which starts at the Louvre in Central Paris and continues along the Champs-Élysées, well beyond the Arc de Triomphe before culminating at La Défense.
Around its 110-metre (360 ft)-high Grande Arche and esplanade ("le Parvis"), the district holds many of the Paris urban area's tallest buildings. With its 77.5 acres (314,000 m2), its 72 glass-and-steel slick buildings including 14 sky scrapers above 150 metres (490 ft), its 180,000 daily workers and 3.5 million square metres (37.7 million sq ft) of office space, La Défense is Europe's largest purpose-built business district. La Défense is seen as comparable to Canary Wharf in London: both are spaces where "statements of corporate ambition can be made", without thereby encroaching on the historical quarters of the city.
La Défense is named after the iconic statue La Défense de Paris, which was erected in 1883 to commemorate the soldiers who had defended Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.
The Grande Arche, one of the most iconic structures of La Defense was built to complete the Historic Axe.
Adapted from wikipedia
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