The Covered Passage of Paris are an early form of shopping arcade built in Paris, France primarily during the first half of the 19th century. Only a couple of dozen passages remain in the 21st century, all on the Right Bank. The common characteristics of the covered passages are that they are: pedestrianised; glass-ceilings; artificially illuminated at night (initially with gas lamps); privately owned; highly ornamented and decorated; lined with small shops on the ground floor; connecting two streets. Originally, to keep the passages clean, each would have an artiste de décrottage (a shit-removal artist) at the entrance to clean the shoes of visitors. There is a list of current passages that stil exist.

The passages were the subject of Walter Benjamin’s incomplete magnum-opus Passagenwerk (Arcades Project) which was posthumously published.