Vitry-sur-Seine is a municipality of the Val-de-Marne department, on the left bank of the Seine, south of Paris. It is one of the most populated in the department, whose prefecture town is Créteil. Once a market-gardening then an industrial town, it has kept along the river the memory of its working-class and river-trade past, around the Port-à-l'Anglais and its lock, while transforming itself through successive major development projects.
The town is organised around its centre, the town hall on avenue Youri-Gagarine and the RD5, the road that crosses it from north to south. The MAC VAL, the contemporary art museum of the Val-de-Marne, gives it a recognised cultural presence, while the parc départemental des Lilas spreads a vast green space to the east. The banks of the Seine and the Port-à-l'Anglais garden city complete a contrasting urban landscape, between low-rise detached housing, post-war housing estates and areas under transformation.
The town is now carried by major transport and urban renewal projects. The Les Ardoines urban development zone, to the south, is preparing the arrival of line 15 of the Grand Paris Express, and the T9 tram now serves the RD5. The property market reflects it: the banks of the Seine and the areas closest to Paris are gaining value, while the low-rise residential districts of the east and the south remain more affordable, in a town where prices follow geography and projects.
