Villeurbanne, Large commune in Lyon Metropolis, France
Villeurbanne is a large commune within the Métropole de Lyon in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. It sits directly east of central Lyon and covers flat to gently rolling terrain.
The settlement grew from a Gallo-Roman farmstead and became part of the French kingdom in 1349. Industrial plants attracted workers from the 19th century onward and turned the village into a growing industrial town.
The name comes from the Latin Villa Urbana, which once referred to a Roman estate. Today the commune carries modern residential quarters and university campus buildings that shape the townscape, where students move between lectures and cafés.
The commune connects well to Lyon by public transport, and several tram lines run through residential areas and toward the university quarter. Visitors can navigate on foot between main squares and markets, especially around the central avenues.
In the late 1920s the population grew from around three thousand to over eighty thousand people within just three years. This rapid expansion followed an industrial boom that raised new factories and housing blocks from the ground.
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