Notre-Dame Cathedral — Point Zéro
Point Zéro on the parvis of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris is a bronze medallion that serves as the official starting point for measuring all national road distances in France. Originally the site of a medieval pillory called the Échelle de Justice, King Louis XV designated it as the national road origin in 1769. The current marker, installed on July 1, 2025, is a replica replacing the 1924 original damaged in the 2019 fire.
Paris · from the walk “From the Cathedral to the Iron Lady” · audio ~3 min · Generated
Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris
- King Louis XV issued letters patent in 1769 designating Point Zéro at Notre-Dame as France's official road starting point.
- The Paris city council debated for 12 years before installing the original Point Zéro bronze medallion in 1924.
- Following the 2019 fire, a replica of the Point Zéro medallion was ceremonially installed on July 1, 2025.
- The damaged 1924 Point Zéro original was retired and is now preserved in Paris's Carnavalet Museum.
What is the purpose of Point Zéro outside Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris?
Look down. Right now, beneath your feet... or just a few steps away... there is a small bronze disc embedded in the pavement. Most visitors walk right over it without a second glance, their eyes drawn upward toward the towers of Notr-Dam. But this modest plaque is one of the most symbolically powerful objects in all of France.......... This is the Point Zero des Routes de France. Every road sign you have ever seen in this country that reads "pariS... two hundred fifty kilometres" is measuring the distance to This exact spot. The fourteen national roads leaving the capital all begin here, on the parvis of Notr-Dam, on the Île de la Cite.......... But here is what most people never hear. Before this was the heart of France's road system... it was a place of punishment. In the Middle Ages, a wooden post stood right here, called the Échelle de Justice, the Ladder of Justice. Condemned criminals were forced to kneel at its base, barefoot, bare-headed, clutching a heavy yellow wax candle, with a sign around their neck proclaiming their crime. Those sentenced to death wore a rope around their throat. Justice, in those days, was a Public spectacle.......... Then, in seventeen sixty-nine, King Louis the Fifteenth issued letters patent that transformed this site of shame into something entirely different... the official starting point of every road in France. The first physical marker appeared in seventeen eighty-six. But the bronze medallion you see today? It took Twelve Years of debate by the pariS city council before it was finally installed... in nineteen twenty-four.......... And the story does not end there. After the devastating fire of twenty nineteen, the medallion was badly damaged. It was removed, and when restorers examined it, they found it was beyond repair. So the city's own metalworkers forged a perfect replica, which was ceremonially placed back into the ground on July first, twenty twenty-five. The original now rests in the Carnavalet Museum. So if you saw the plaque before the fire... you saw the Real one. What lies beneath your feet today is its twin, crafted with the same care, carrying the same meaning.......... Now look up at the cathedral itself. Notr-Dam sits on foundations that go back Far beyond the twelfth century. This very ground once held a Roman temple to Jupiter, a place of pagan worship in the Gallo-Roman city of Lutetia. Layer upon layer of history... and you are standing at its absolute centre.