The Seine is the river that flows through Paris and passes the Louvre and Notre-Dame.
The Seine rises on the Langres Plateau in eastern France and runs about 777 kilometres before reaching the English Channel near Le Havre. In Paris, its banks divide the city into the Right Bank and Left Bank. Many of the capital’s most famous monuments stand beside it, including the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre-Dame Cathedral, and the Musée d’Orsay.
The river has long shaped Parisian trade, transport, and culture. The historic banks of the Seine in Paris were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991. The river has also caused serious floods; the great Paris flood of 1910 remains one of the city’s best-known natural disasters. The Seine is sometimes confused with the Marne, another river in the Paris region, but the Marne is a major tributary that joins the Seine southeast of the city.