Planned (1755) as a monumental square in honor of the king, Paris's Place Louis XV became Place de la Revolution in 1792 and, informally, Place du Guillotine from 1793 to 1795, when hundreds of unfortunates felt the fall of the knife here.

Hoping to inspire better times, the Directory government renamed the great open space Place de la Concorde.

The Egyptian obelisk at the center of the grand 8.4-hectare (21-acre) plaza is from the Temple of Luxor in Egypt.

Cut from pink granite in a quarry on the Nile 3300 years ago, it weighs about 200 metric tons (220 US tons) and stands 23 meters (75 feet) tall. (London's Cleopatra's Needle is similar, but 2 meters shorter.)

From Place de la Concorde, the Avenue des Champs-Elyseés extends northwestward nearly 4 km (2.5 miles) to the Place Charles de Gaulle-Étoile with its monumental Arc de Triomphe.

Place de la Concorde

Métro: Concorde

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