Left Bank

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The arrondissements of Paris with the river Seine bisecting the city. The Rive Gauche is the southern half.

La Rive Gauche (The Left Bank) is the southern bank of the river Seine in Paris. Here, the river flows roughly westwards, cutting the city into two: the Rive Droite (Right Bank), to the north and the Rive Gauche (Left Bank), to the south.

"Rive Gauche" or "Left Bank" generally refer to the Paris of an earlier era; the Paris of artists, writers and philosophers, including Pablo Picasso, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Henri Matisse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and dozens of other members of the great artistic community at Montparnasse. The phrase connotes this sense of bohemianism and creativity. Some of its famous streets are the Boulevard Saint-Germain, Boulevard Saint-Michel and the Rue de Rennes.

The phrase has also become a name for a particular lifestyle, fashion or "look".^{[citation needed]} In 1966, Yves Saint-Laurent launched a ready-to-wear line by the name Rive Gauche. The collection was an attempt to democratize fashion, introducing elements of garments of the lower classes into high fashion.^{[citation needed]}

The Latin Quarter is a Left Bank area in the 5th arrondissement, so named because originally Latin was widely spoken by students in the vicinity of the University of Paris.

See also

• Arrondissements of Paris