The 1.18 mile (1.91 km) long Avenue des Champs-Elysées links the Place de la Concorde to the Place Charles de Gaulle and its Arc de Triomphe. It has not always been the prestigious place it is now known to be. In the 17th century, the area was made up of marshy land that made it uninhabitable. Colbert had the marshes cleaned up and Louis XIV asked Le Nôtre to lay out an avenue lined with elm trees in order to get from the Tuileries Palace to the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye and beyond to the Château de Versailles. Its current name of Champs-Elysées, fixed in 1709, is borrowed from Greek mythology where it represented paradise.