<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> <P> French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers> 1 km2 (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries . </P> Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once . </Td> </Tr> <P> French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers> 1 km2 (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries . </P> <P> Paris (French pronunciation: ​ (paʁi) (listen)) is the capital and most populous city in France, with an administrative - limits area of 105 square kilometres (41 square miles) and an official population of 2,206,488 (2015). The city is a commune and department, and the heart of the 12,012 - square - kilometre (4,638 - square - mile) Île - de-France region (colloquially known as the' Paris Region'), whose 2016 population of 12,142,802 represented roughly 18 percent of the population of France . Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of Europe's major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts . The Paris Region had a GDP of € 649.6 billion (US $763.4 billion) in 2014, accounting for 30.4 percent of the GDP of France . According to official estimates, in 2013 - 14 the Paris Region had the third - highest GDP in the world and the largest regional GDP in the EU . </P> <P> The City of Paris's administrative limits form an East - West oval centred on the island at its historical heart, the Île de la Cité; this island is near the top of an arc of the river Seine that divides the city into southern Rive Gauche (Left Bank) and northern Rive Droite regions . Paris is the core of a built - up area that extends well beyond its limits: commonly referred to as the agglomération Parisienne, and statistically as a unité urbaine (a measure of urban area), the Paris agglomeration's 2013 population of 10,601,122 made it the largest urban area in the European Union . City - influenced commuter activity reaches well beyond even this in a statistical aire urbaine de Paris (a measure of metropolitan area), that had a 2013 population of 12,405,426, a number one - fifth the population of France, the largest metropolitan area in the Eurozone . </P>

What city in france has the highest population