Today the principle site of interest to the visitor is the Père Lachaise cemetery, the largest green space in the city. Created on land granted by Napoleon in 1803, the cemetery attracts thousands of families, students and the curious every day, who come to pay a visit to the many women and men that rest in peace here: Apollinaire, Balzac, Beaumarchais, Bizet, Caillebotte, Chopin, David, Héloïse et Abélard, Ingres, La Fontaine, Marie Laurencin, Modigliani, Molière, Montand, Morrison, Musset, Piaf, Proust, Rossini, Seurat, Thiers, Richard Wallace, Oscar Wilde.... and so may others!

183,000 living residents occupy the remaining 6 square kilometers, packed in at 30,000 per square kilometer but, true to its origins, the 20th does not take its metropolitan status seriously: there are still dozens of small houses, hidden courtyards, and restaurants which haven’t seen a customer from outside a four block area in decades. The worthwhile hike up to the arrondissement’s highest point, near the Porte de Montreuil, will also reward the visitor with a complete village of individual houses, gardens and back yards, all within Paris city limits.