Essonne

Not to be confused with Essenes.

Essonne
Department of France
From top down, left to right : view of Château de Courances, Castel of Lormoy in Longpont-sur-Orge, Château du Saussay and La gloriette in Brunoy
Flag Coat of arms
Location of Essonne in France
Coordinates: 48°30′N02°17′E / 48.500°N 2.283°E / 48.500; 2.283
Country	France
Region	Île-de-France
Prefecture	Évry-Courcouronnes
Subprefectures	Étampes Palaiseau
Government
•  President of the Departmental Council	François Durovray [1] (LR)
Area 1
• Total	1,804 km2 (697 sq mi)
Population  (2023) [2]
• Total	1,338,485
• Rank	14th
• Density	742.0/km2 (1,922/sq mi)
GDP [3]
• Total	€58.462 billion (2021)
• Per capita	€44,500 (2021)
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
Department number	91
Arrondissements	3
Cantons	21
Communes	194
Website	www.essonne.fr www.essonnetourisme.com
^1 French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries and lakes, ponds and glaciers larger than 1 km2

Essonne (French pronunciation: [ɛsɔn] ^ⓘ ) is a department in the southern suburb part of the Île-de-France region. It is named after the river Essonne. In 2019, it had a population of 1,301,659, across 194 communes. ^[4]

Essonne was formed on 1 January 1968, when Seine-et-Oise was split into smaller departments. Its prefecture is Évry-Courcouronnes. Its INSEE and postcode number is 91.

History

The Essonne department was created on 1 January 1968 from the southern portion of the former department of Seine-et-Oise.

In June 1963, Carrefour S.A. opened the first hypermarket in the Paris region at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois (although the word "hypermarché" was first used only in 1966). Based on the ideas put forward by the American logistics pioneer Bernardo Trujillo, ^[5] the centre offered on a single 2,500 m² (26,909.78 sq ft) site a hitherto unknown combination of wide choice and low prices, supported by 400 car parking spaces.

In 1969, the communes of Châteaufort and Toussus-le-Noble were separated from Essonne and added to the department of Yvelines.

Geography

Essonne belongs to the region of Île-de-France.

It has borders with the departments of:

• Hauts-de-Seine and Val-de-Marne to the north,
• Seine-et-Marne to the east,
• Loiret to the south,
• Eure-et-Loir and Yvelines to the west.

All of northern Essonne department belongs to the Parisian agglomeration and is very urbanized. The south remains rural.

Principal towns

The most populous commune is Évry-Courcouronnes, the prefecture. As of 2019, ^[update] the 5 most populous communes are: ^[4]

Commune	Population (2019)
Évry-Courcouronnes	66,851
Corbeil-Essonnes	51,234
Massy	50,644
Savigny-sur-Orge	36,577
Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois	35,830

In descending order, the other communes over 25,000 population are: Athis-Mons, Palaiseau, Vigneux-sur-Seine, Viry-Châtillon, Ris-Orangis, Yerres, Draveil, Grigny, Brétigny-sur-Orge, Étampes, Brunoy and Les Ulis. ^[4] Milly-la-Forêt is a notable example of its more rural communes.

Main sights

• The École Polytechnique . Founded in 1794, L'Ecole Polytechnique is one of the most prestigious engineering universities in France. This university was ranked 10th in the world by the Times Higher Education Supplement in 2005. Its campus is in the town of Palaiseau.
• Paris-Sud University. One of the best public schools in France, it is ranked 52nd by Academic Ranking of World Universities. It is best known for its mathematics department. Located in Orsay, Essonne, about 26,000 students are enrolled.
• The Headquarters of the Arianespace Company, a major commercial aerospace launcher, servicing companies who wish to launch satellites into space.
• Château de Montlhéry. Originally having been an ancient fort during Roman times, the first feudal lords began to inhabit the castle around 1000 AD. One major battle was fought in the castle during its lifetime. In 1465, Charles the Rash and French King Louis XI fought in the plains in front of the castle. In 1842, the reconstruction of the castle was started, and currently is being maintained by the local town of Montlhery
• Château de Courances
• The Forest of Sénart. Covering 3,500 hectares in area, this forest is very important to the local population. The local government has kept roads and agricultural companies from cutting down parts of this forest. The forest receives between two and three million visitors annually, and the government spends 1.2 million euros a year maintaining it.
• Telecom Sudparis. Situated in Évry, this is a grande école for engineers

Politics

See also: Departmental Council of Essonne

The department's most high-profile political representative has been Manuel Valls, who was Prime Minister of France from 31 March 2014 to 6 December 2016. Valls visited its main town, Évry, to deliver remarks following the Charlie Hebdo massacre of January 2015. The president of the Departmental Council is François Durovray, elected in 2015.

Presidential election, second round

Election		Winning candidate	Party	%	2nd place candidate	Party	%
	2022 [6]	Emmanuel Macron	LREM	65.43	Marine Le Pen	FN	34.57
	2017 [7]	Emmanuel Macron	LREM	72.18	Marine Le Pen	FN	27.82
	2012	François Hollande	PS	53.43	Nicolas Sarkozy	UMP	46.57
	2007	Nicolas Sarkozy	UMP	52.08	Ségolène Royal	PS	47.92
	2002 [7]	Jacques Chirac	RPR	84.96	Jean-Marie Le Pen	FN	15.04
	1995 [8]	Jacques Chirac	RPR	53.30	Lionel Jospin	PS	15.04

Members of the National Assembly

Constituency		Member [9]	Party
	Essonne's 1st constituency	Francis Chouat	La République En Marche!
	Essonne's 2nd constituency	Franck Marlin	The Republicans
	Essonne's 3rd constituency	Laëtitia Romeiro Dias	La République En Marche!
	Essonne's 4th constituency	Marie-Pierre Rixain	La République En Marche!
	Essonne's 5th constituency	Cédric Villani	Ecology Democracy Solidarity
	Essonne's 6th constituency	Amélie de Montchalin	La République En Marche!
	Essonne's 7th constituency	Robin Reda	The Republicans
	Essonne's 8th constituency	Nicolas Dupont-Aignan	Debout la France
	Essonne's 9th constituency	Marie Guévenoux	La République En Marche!
	Essonne's 10th constituency	Pierre-Alain Raphan	La République En Marche!

Demographics

Population development since 1876:

Historical population
Year Pop. ±% p.a. 1876 135,911 —     1881 140,027 +0.60% 1891 151,726 +0.81% 1901 164,617 +0.82% 1911 177,385 +0.75% 1921 187,188 +0.54% 1931 271,094 +3.77% 1936 286,896 +1.14% 1946 293,932 +0.24% 1954 350,987 +2.24%	Year Pop. ±% p.a. 1962 478,691 +3.96% 1968 673,325 +5.85% 1975 923,063 +4.61% 1982 988,000 +0.98% 1990 1,084,824 +1.18% 1999 1,134,238 +0.50% 2006 1,198,273 +0.79% 2010 1,215,340 +0.35% 2016 1,287,330 +0.96% 2022 1,324,546 +0.48%
source: [10] [11]

Place of birth of residents

Place of birth of residents of Essonne in 1999

Born in metropolitan France	Born outside metropolitan France
84.7%	15.3%
	Born in overseas France	Born in foreign countries with French citizenship at birth1	EU-15 immigrants2	Non-EU-15 immigrants
	1.8%	2.8%	4.0%	6.7%
1 This group is made up largely of former French settlers, such as pieds-noirs in Northwest Africa, followed by former colonial citizens who had French citizenship at birth (such as was often the case for the native elite in French colonies), as well as to a lesser extent foreign-born children of French expatriates. A foreign country is understood as a country not part of France in 1999, so a person born for example in 1950 in Algeria, when Algeria was an integral part of France, is nonetheless listed as a person born in a foreign country in French statistics. 2 An immigrant is a person born in a foreign country not having French citizenship at birth. An immigrant may have acquired French citizenship since moving to France, but is still considered an immigrant in French statistics. On the other hand, persons born in France with foreign citizenship (the children of immigrants) are not listed as immigrants.

Tourism

• 
  Étampes
• 
  Château de Dourdan
• 
  Château de Montlhéry
• 
  Longpont-sur-Orge
• 
  Milly La Forêt

Sister regions

Essonne is twinned with:

• Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan (since 1986)

See also

• Cantons of the Essonne department
• Communes of the Essonne department
• Arrondissements of the Essonne department

References

1. "Répertoire national des élus: les conseillers départementaux". data.gouv.fr, Plateforme ouverte des données publiques françaises (in French). 4 May 2022.
2. "Populations de référence 2023" (in French). National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies. 18 December 2025.
3. "Gross domestic product (GDP) at current market prices by NUTS 3 regions". ec.europa.eu.
4. Populations légales 2019: 91 Essonne, INSEE
5. Soulabail, Yves (2020-09-30). "Bernardo Trujillo, son enseignement lors des séminaires MMM". Carrefour Un combat pour la liberté. (in French). Retrieved 2022-04-28.
6. "Les résultats du second tour de l'élection présidentielle". France 24 (in French). 2022-04-19. Retrieved 2022-04-28.
7. "Présidentielles". www.interieur.gouv.fr (in French). Retrieved 2022-04-28.
8. "Résultats de l'élection présidentielle de 1995 par département - Politiquemania". www.politiquemania.com. Retrieved 2022-04-28.
9. Nationale, Assemblée. "Assemblée nationale ~ Les députés, le vote de la loi, le Parlement français". Assemblée nationale.
10. "Historique de l'Essonne". Le SPLAF.
11. "Évolution et structure de la population en 2016". INSEE.

External links

• (in French) Prefecture website
• (in French) Departmental council website Archived 2024-01-19 at the Wayback Machine