Paris is included in the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan New England City and town area.

The main exception is the area known as Paris Hill, which is a scenic historic district popular with tourists.

It was the second attempt to repay the soldiers, because their first grant in New Hampshire, made on November 24, 1736, and called Township Number Four, was deemed invalid because of a prior claim by the heirs of John Mason.

[5] On November 4, 1773, when the Proprietors were lotting out the township, they held a meeting at Coolidge Tavern in Watertown Massachusetts and they voted that there be reserved for the use of the proprietors their heirs and assigns forever two rods in width on the eastward side of every range line through the length of the township for the conveniency of ways if it shall be needed, establishing rangeways to prevent landlocking and segregation in the township of Paris and West Paris.

[6][7][8] It was first settled near the center of the town in 1779 by Lemuel Jackson, John Willis and their families.

It was noted for scenic beauty and excellent pasturage, including some of the state's best livestock and dairy farms.

[9] The Little Androscoggin River provided water power for mills at South Paris, to which the town center shifted after the arrival of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad on June 8, 1850.

[10] In the 1890s, the county seat moved here from Paris Hill to be near the train station.

Manufacturing would fade with the Great Depression, but South Paris remains the commercial part of the town.

The town is located on a bed of pegmatite in which many semi-precious gems and rare stones can be found, including beryl, garnet, tourmaline, amethyst and smoky quartz.

31.2% were of English, 15.0% American, 9.9% French, 9.7% Irish and 7.1% Finnish ancestry according to Census 2000.