Le Grand Bourg takes up the far north of the town, on the slope overlooking the Seine, and continues without a break into Ris-Orangis, with which it shares its district name. With neighbouring Le Petit Bourg, it forms the oldest core of that area: until the middle of the twentieth century Évry remained a farming town and the ferme du Petit-Bourg held most of the land.
The place has a stubborn history. The château de Petit-Bourg, bought in 1827 by the banker Alexandre Aguado, marquis de Las Marismas, elected mayor of Évry-sur-Seine in 1831, welcomed Rossini, who composed part of William Tell there. The estate was parcelled out after 1840, the château burnt down in 1944 and its ruins levelled. All that remains is the line of the streets and a few trees. The area then filled with houses and, more recently, small developments such as L'Orangerie.
On the market, Le Grand Bourg shows the highest average price in Évry-Courcouronnes, at around 3 165 €/m² for an apartment, on only about 16 sales a year. That limited volume makes the average sensitive from one year to the next, and the spread there is the widest in the town: a quarter of the sales go below 2 401 €/m², a quarter above 3 872 €/m². The district median, at 3 125 €/m², nonetheless confirms a level clearly above the rest of the town.
