From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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The Champs-Élysées is the most prestigious and broadest avenue in Paris. Its full name is actually "Avenue des Champs-Élysées". With its cinemas, cafés, and luxury specialty shops, the Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets in the world, and with rents as high as $1.25 million a year for 1,000 square feet of space, it remains the 2^nd most expensive strip of real estate in the world (the first in Europe) after New York City's Fifth Avenue. The name refers to the Elysian Fields, the place of the blessed in Greek mythology.

The Champs-Élysées is known as La plus belle avenue du monde ("The most beautiful avenue in the world"). The arrival of global chain stores in recent years has slightly changed the character of the avenue, and in a first effort to stem these changes, the Paris City government (which has called this "banalization") decided in 2007 to ban the Swedish clothing chain H&M from opening a store on the avenue This street is also very popular with many of the rich and famous.