Paris's Chinatown, located in the 13th arrondissment the city which borders the commune of Ivry, has now spread to the northern parts of Ivry. Many overseas Chinese companies and Asian food warehouses are located in Ivry.
Originally, Ivry-sur-Seine was called simply Ivry. The name Ivry comes from Medieval LatinIvriacum or Ibriacum, perhaps meaning "estate of Eburius (the latinized form of the Gallicpatronym Eburos)", a Gallo-Roman landowner.
In 1897 the name of the commune officially became Ivry-sur-Seine (meaning "Ivry upon Seine"), in order to distinguish it from other communes of France also called Ivry.
History
On January 1, 1860, the city of Paris was enlarged by annexing neighboring communes. On that occasion, about a third of the commune of Ivry-sur-Seine was annexed to Paris, and now forms the Chinatown area of the 13th arrondissement of Paris.
Ivry-sur-Seine is perhaps most famous as the place of execution of Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry in March 1963. Richard Ellman also notes that James Joyce's daughter, Lucia, received psychiatric treatment in the commune's hospital in 1936 and was visited by both Joyce and Samuel Beckett.[1]
¹This group is made up largely of pieds-noirs from Northwest Africa, followed by former colonial citizens who had French citizenship at birth (such as was often the case for the native elite in French colonies), and to a lesser extent foreign-born children of French expatriates. Note that a foreign country is understood as a country not part of France as of 1999, so a person born for example in 1950 in Algeria, when Algeria was an integral part of France, is nonetheless listed as a person born in a foreign country in French statistics.
² An immigrant is a person born in a foreign country not having French citizenship at birth. Note that an immigrant may have acquired French citizenship since moving to France, but is still considered an immigrant in French statistics. On the other hand, persons born in France with foreign citizenship (the children of immigrants) are not listed as immigrants.