Eiffel Tower, Paris Live Cam

The Eiffel Tower rises over the roofs of western Paris, with the Champ de Mars stretching away at its foot. The webcam holds it in the middle of a view across the city.

It went up between 1887 and 1889 for a world fair and was meant to come down after twenty years. What saved it was the aerial on top: the army found the height useful for wireless telegraphy, and the demolition never happened.

The iron expands in the heat, so the top shifts and the tower stands a little higher in summer than in winter. It is repainted roughly every seven years by hand, which takes some sixty tonnes of paint.