Le Méridien de Paris

The Paris Meridian is marked by a series of one hundred and thirty-five bronze medallions embedded into the pavement, each bearing the name of the astronomer François Arago. These markers trace a north-south line once used as the prime meridian for France. In eighteen ninety-four, the path of this line became a formal project when the city installed the markers to celebrate scientific history. One of them sits right outside the Observatoire de Paris, where Arago worked to measure the Earth.