The Place de la Bastille and the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine are full of fashionable cafés, restaurants, as well as nightlife; they also contain a range of boutiques and galleries.

The east is more residential, with more wholesale commerce, while the areas around Boulevard Voltaire and Avenue Parmentier are livelier crossroads for the local community.

On 13 November 2015, the arrondissement was the site (among others) of coordinated Islamic shootings and bombings, particularly at the Bataclan theatre, which left 130 dead.

Today, the arrondissement remains the most densely populated in Paris, accompanied by a large volume of business activity: 149,102 inhabitants and 71,962 jobs in the last census, in 1999.

The population consists of a large number of single adults, though its eastern portions are more family-oriented.