Essonne is a French department in the region of Île-de-France, it is named after the Essonne River and was formed on 1 January 1968 when Seine-et-Oise was split into smaller departments. The department share 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. Some of the main sights include L'École Polytechnique founded in 1794, The Headquarters of the Arianespace Company (CNES) in Evry the prefecture city, with the only cathedral built in the 20th century in the whole of France, the Château de Montlhéry and theForet of Sénart, a forest covering 3,500 hectares in area, this forest is very important to the local population. Learn more about the Essonne on
wikipedia.