The Gallo-Roman town expanded greatly over the following centuries, becoming a prosperous city with palaces, a forum, baths, temples, theatres and an amphitheatre. A permanent Roman settlement began towards the end of the same century on Paris' Left Bank Sainte Geneviève Hill and Île de la Cité island, in a town first called Lutetia, but later becoming Gallicised Lutèce. The Roman westward campaigns had conquered the Paris basin in 52 BC. Known boatsmen and traders, a sub-tribe of the celtic Senones, the Parisii, settled the area near the river Seine from around 250 BC. The earliest signs of permanent habitation in the Paris area date from around 4200 BC. The city serves as an important hub of intercontinental transportation and is home to universities, sport events, opera companies and museums of international renown, making it an attraction for over 30 million foreign visitors per year. Today, Paris is a major influence in politics, fashion, business, arts and science.
Paris' location at a crossroads between land and river trade routes in lands of abundant agriculture had made it one of France's principal cities by the 10th century, rich with royal palaces, wealthy abbeys and a cathedral by the 12th century Paris had become one of Europe's foremost centres of learning and the arts. The Paris urban area has a population of 9.93 million and a commuter belt around the same completes the Paris "aire urbaine" (roughly: "metropolitan area") that, with its population of 12 million, is one of the most populated areas of its kind in Europe. Paris has an estimated population of 2,153,600 within city limit (2005 est.). It is situated on the River Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region ("Région parisienne").
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