As soon as the warm weather arrives, the lawns of Buttes-Chaumont Park fill with people coming to enjoy the atmosphere and the views of Paris. The park is so popular that it attracts nearly 6 million visitors each year. Yet, in the mid-19th century, no one would have thought of having a picnic there. The site, which had been used for gypsum mining, was then nothing more than an open-air dump!
At that time, the hill on the outskirts of Paris was at the heart of a sparsely urbanized area where the most polluting industries were concentrated. Nearly 800 workers were employed in the area at the time, mining gypsum. In fact, part of the production was exported directly to the United States, which earned the area the nickname “Quartier Amérique.”
Buttes-Chaumont: From Landfill to Successful Park
Around 1860, Napoleon III decided to transform this quarry into a public park, and a major construction project was launched. 1,000 workers were mobilized, along with 450 mine cars traveling along 40 kilometers of track. After several years of construction—during which dynamite was even used—the Buttes-Chaumont Park was inaugurated in 1867 for the World’s Fair.
Today, it is a 25-hectare park featuring a lake, a rocky island, waterfalls, and an artificial cave. At the top of the lookout, there’s even the Temple of the Sibyl, directly inspired by the one in Tivoli, Italy. The architects and landscape designers, inspired by the Alps and the cliffs of Étretat, deliberately set out to create a park with varied terrain—something quite unusual for the capital.
More than 160 years later, this is still what drives the ever-growing popularity of the Buttes-Chaumont. But the park still bears the scars of its industrial past: the subsoil remains fragile, and some cliffs are losing their stability. That is why the City of Paris has recently undertaken restoration work on the park. In fact, within a few years, visitors will once again be able to access the central part of the park, which is still closed to the public.
📍Location: Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, Place Armand-Carrel, 75019 Paris
📆Hours: Daily from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. through February 28, 2027; free admission. Some central areas remain closed for construction.