Les Ulis

Sister cities

• Naumburg

History

The discovery in 1977 of Bronze Age tools in the neighbouring town of Villejust suggests the possibility of pre-historic human occupation of the area that is today Les Ulis. During the Roman era, villas rustica occupied the Courtabœuf plateau. One, the "Villa Bona" gives its name to nearby Villebon-sur-Yvette. A number were constructed by a property owner named Uslo, whose name might conceivably be connected to that of Les Ulis. It is also possible that the name is related to the Old French usler, meaning to raze by fire. The area was at one time wooded, but was cleared during the Middle Ages. The name "Ullys" is first recorded as that of a feudal fee in a monastic inventory of 1382. In 1712, this land is recorded as belonging to Charles Boucher, an important Parisian civil servant. In 1767, it was transferred to Count Pierre Gaspard Marie Grimod d'Orsay. A significant farm of 160 hectares, the Grand Vivier, occupied much of the land. It raised cattle and sheep and cultivated wheat, potato, strawberry and beet. There was also a distillery on the land. The Ligne de Sceaux railway opened in 1867, passing just to the west of the present-day town. The development of the Courtabœuf industrial park was decided on in 1960, accompanied on 30 November that year by a decision to create a priority development zone for ten thousand homes to sit alongside it. 265 hectares of land comprising four farms, previously belonging to the communes of Bures-sur-Yvette and Orsay, were set aside for this housing project. On 13 March 1964, an urban district of Bures-Orsay was established to oversee the development of the area. Road and utilities for the industrial zone were completed by July 1966, with the first business, AtoChem (part of what is now Total S.A.), moving in the following…

Geography

The town is laid out in the form of a U, approximately three kilometres by two kilometres, and covers 680 hectares. Over 65% of the area is built-up, 17% is semi-rural, and 16% is either rural or comprises communal green space. The French Institut Géographique National gives the co-ordinates of the town as 48°40'56" N and 02°10'03" E at the central point. The source of the minor river Rouillon (river) is in the neighbouring town of Villejust, close to the communal border. The lowest point of the town, at the point where it meets Bures-sur-Yvette, is at an altitude of 87m. Most of the town is situated at an average altitude of over 150m. Its highest point is at 170m. The land on which it is built consists of clay, sand, and millstone. The town is divided into distinct neighbourhoods by the main roads running through it. To the east is a large industrial zone. To the west is the residential area, a large part of which consists of 33 HLM tower blocks, grouped into four neighbourhoods. The town was conceived and built in the 1970s according to the precepts of Le Corbusier by architects Robert Camelot, François Prieur and Georges-Henri Pingusson. Its tower blocks are raised on slabs so that they are accessed above street level by means of pedestrian walkways. The town incorporates a large urban park, to the north.