Roissy-en-France (CDG Airport)
Most people pass through Roissy-en-France without knowing the town exists at all — they're too busy watching the departure boards. But the place that swallowed this small commune whole, Charles de Gaulle Airport, is itself worth a second look. Terminal 1, the circular concrete structure designed by Paul Andreu and opened in 1974, has been nicknamed the 'camembert' since before most of its current passengers were born, and it earns the comparison: a ten-storey drum, 192 metres across, ringed by satellite buildings connected via glass-tubed walkways.
Underground, the RER B pulls in from Gare du Nord in roughly half an hour. A TGV station built into the complex in 1994 means you can arrive from Lyon or Brussels without touching central Paris at all. Roissy-en-France, population 2,682, quietly contains one of Europe's busiest transit points.
💛 What travellers fall for
Regulars through CDG tend to route themselves through the renovated Terminal 1 departure lounge — redesigned in 2022 by Maxime Liautard and Hugo Toro with the feel of a Parisian bistro — rather than the older Terminal 2 halls. If you have a long connection, it genuinely changes the texture of the wait.
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How Roissy-en-France (CDG Airport) came to be
The village of Roissy-en-France appeared in written record in 1174, when a local lord donated woodland to the Abbey of Saint-Victor in Paris. Centuries later, archaeological digs for the airport's expansion turned up a 4th-century chapel site dating to the reign of Constantine. The Church of Saint-Éloi, still standing in the town, was built around 1570 at the commission of Jean-Jacques de Mesmes.
The airport that now defines the place was a government decision made in 1964. Ground was broken in 1966 and construction began in earnest in August 1968. Paul Andreu, fresh from the École des Beaux-Arts, designed what was then called Paris-Nord Airport. It opened on 8 March 1974, inaugurated by Prime Minister Pierre Messmer at a cost of $275 million. Terminal 2 followed in 1981, opened formally by President François Mitterrand in March 1982. The airport was renamed for Charles de Gaulle, who had died in 1970, sometime between those two openings.
Who and what shaped it
People who shaped it
Landmark buildings
Plan your visit
On the map
When to go
Île-de-France winters are grey and damp, with temperatures often sitting between 3°C and 8°C from December through February. Spring and early autumn are mild and more comfortable for any time you spend outside the terminal — summer brings warmth but also peak crowds across the entire airport.
Right now
Background & history adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA) · specs from Wikidata (CC0) · weather from Open-Meteo · map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · photos from Wikimedia Commons / Unsplash with per-image credit. No third-party reviews or social posts reproduced.