It is home to Paris's principal Asian community, the Quartier Asiatique, located in the southeast of the arrondissement in an area that contains many high-rise apartment buildings.

He was reelected by the arrondissement council on 29 March 2008 after the list which he headed gained 70% of the votes cast in the second round of the 2008 municipal election.

[3] The 13th arrondissement is also home to the Bibliothèque nationale de France's François Mitterrand site and the newly built business district of Paris Rive Gauche.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the first wave of Vietnamese refugees from the Vietnam War settled in the arrondissement, largely concentrated near Masséna Boulevard.

These migrants largely settled in the southern area of the arrondissement, creating an Asian quarter and establishing a commercial district and community institutions.