Paola is renowned for the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum, the Basilica of Christ the King (the largest church in the Maltese Islands), Antoine de Paule Square and its shopping centres, the Good Friday procession, and its football club, Hibernians FC.

The country's correctional facilities (Corradino prison) and the largest burial grounds, the Addolorata Cemetery are also within the limits of Paola.

[8] "On the day of Sunday, the 25th day of the month of August 1630, which is the feast of the king Saint Ludovico, the Most Serene and the Most Revered Grand Master Fra Antoine de Paule went to the town, which for the past four years had taken the name of his family and which was established in the land of Marsa, and he was accompanied by numerous Venerable Gran Cruci as well as by numerous brethren from our Order and in front of a crowd of people he laid the first stone of the church which was to be built for the grace of God and the Holy Virgin Ubaldesca, sister of our Religion, with the permission of the Most Reverend Prior of the church, Fra Salvatur Imbroll, who was adorned with pontifical clothes and according to the rites of the Holy Roman Church.

This was done with the apolostic authority given by the Magnificent His Holiness from Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, on the 31st of July 1629 and which was written in the public deed of the Notary Lorenzo Grima.

[7]: 174 At the start of the British colonial period, Paula was almost deserted due to malaria rising from the marshes at Marsa.

These marshes were drained by Captain Frederick Hunn,[10] as well as by Francesco Zammit, a local entrepreneur who got in exchange the ownership of the newly dried lands, thus becoming by the 1830s the richest man in Malta.

Now fully surrounded by Paola's urban area, Corradino remains Malta's main correctional facility to date.

In 1862-1868 the new main resting place in Malta, the Addolorata Cemetery, was built on a hill known as Tal-Ħorr which was already a burial ground since prehistoric times.

The St. Ubaldesca Church was enlarged in 1900 to accommodate the growing population, and Paola became a parish in 1910, when it was dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Since then, the church has undergone restoration and its interior is adorned with gold guilding and a niche holding the parish's titular statue of Christ the King.

Since the 1960s until 2018, Pjazza Antoine de Paole (Paola Square) included a central pedestrian space, with a kiosk shaded by trees.

Despite being presented as aimed at the creation of an "urban garden",[15] the project entailed uprooting all the mature trees on the square.

The architect justified this as the roots were damaging the underground infrastructure and the sappy spores of the ficus trees were making the floor filthy and attracting insects.