In this article, we’re going to look at the French words needed to talk about cities or towns in French. We’ll discuss the “anatomy of a city” and the features of them.

You also have access to my flashcard set on Quizlet, where you can test yourself on the following vocabulary list. We present both the English-French and French-English word lists to help you master city vocabulary and vocabulary used around town.

Masculine nouns are in red, feminine nouns are in blue and plurals are in green.

Related: How to increase my French Vocabulary.

Buildings or Places of Interest

l’hôtel de ville / la mairie – city hall, town hall
le musée – the museum
le restaurant – the restaurant
l’hôpital – the hospital
l’hôtel – the hotel
la poste – the post office
le commissariat / le poste de police – the police station
le palais de justice – the courthouse
l’aéroport – the airport
la gare – the train station
le garage – the garage / car park
le parc – the park
l’église – the church
la cathédrale – the cathedral
le grand magasin – the department store
le monument – the monument
le cinéma – the movie theater / the cinema
le théâtre / la salle de spectacle – the theater (for plays and shows)
la tour – the tower
le centre commerical – the mall / shopping center
le stade – the stadium
la piscine – the pool
la plage – the beach
l’école – the school
le lycée – the high school
l’université – the university

un bâtiment – a building
le gratte-ciel – the skyscraper
une maison – a house
un appartement – an apartment / flat

Getting Around

la station (de… bus / métro) – the bus stop / metro station
la rue – the road
l’avenue – the avenue
le boulevard – the boulevard
le rond-point – the round-about
le carrefour – the intersection
la place – square / court (not in a legal sense)
le pont – the bridge
la route – the street
la voie – the lane of a road
le passage piéton – the crosswalk / zebra-crossing
le trottoir – the sidewalk
l’autoroute – the highway / motorway

Parts of the city / General Vocabulary

la ville – the city
le village – the town
le centre ville – downtown / city centre
la banlieu – the suburbs
un quartier – neighborhood, quarter
urbain(e) – urban

Check out our vocabulary archive for more French vocabulary lists.