Climate

Épône has a temperate climate of oceanic type that is typical of the Ile-de-France region.^[5] The average temperatures vary between 2-5 °C in January to 14-25 °C in July. Annual rainfall is relatively low at around 600 millimetres per year, with October to January the rainiest months.

Land usage

The majority of the commune is essentially rural (74%),^[6] with urban space accounting for around 20% of the total.

The town area falls into three main groups; the old walled town, the Vélannes hamlet and the Élisabethville area in the alluvial plain. The urban area is more developed at the eastern end of the commune at the edge of the hamlet of Villeneuve (Mézières), and an additional hamlet of around a dozen homes in the area known as "Canada" at the southern end.

Épône includes a part (1500 out of the 4000 inhabitants) of the "garden city" of Élisabethville. Created in the 1920s and named after the then queen of Belgium, the area became popular among Parisians looking to escape the city during the années folles for its beach on the banks of the Seine, its casino and 18-hole golf course. It retains one of the first churches built from reinforced concrete, built in 1928 by the architect Paul Tournon and dedicated to Saint Theresa.

The majority of the houses (~75% ^[7]) are detached, but there are also around 600 homes in collective housing in the town centre, mainly council housing from the 1960s to accommodate employees of the Renault factory.

Economic activity centres around the railway station in an industrial zone bordering the motorway and the RD133 road.

Rural land is principally given to agriculture, with wooded land occupying an additional 20% (primarily the Lourdet and Étibot woods in the south of the commune). There is also a small lake in the Seine valley near Élisabethville on the site of a former gravel pit now converted to a nature reserve.

People linked with Épône

• Hérault de Séchelles (1759–1794), former lord of Épône, representative of Seine-et-Oise in the National Convention, beheaded in 1794, and author of Théorie de l'ambition, codicille politique pratique d’un jeune habitant d’Épône
• Alphonse Durand (1814–1882), architect. Died in Épône on August 4, 1882.
• Émile Sergent (1867–1943), professor of medicine, president of the Académie de médecine and director of Boucicaut Hospital, Paris during the Second World War.^[4]
• Max Brusset (1909–1992), politician (mayor of Royan).
• Daniel Bricon (1928–2004), teacher and historian, author of a history of Épône (1982);^[9]
• Dominique de Roux (1935–1977), writer and journalist. Worked at the château d'Épône owned by her father-in-law, Max Brusset;^[4]
• Pierre Amouroux (1937-2009), conseiller général of Yvelines, mayor of Épône between 1977 and 2004, and MP^[10] between 2004 and 2007.

Twin towns

• "Sponsorship" of Doïna-Girov, Romania organised by "Les Amis de Doïna Girov" to provide humanitarian help to the Romanian village.
• Prokuplje

Education

• Schools :
  • Three nursery schools: Les Pervenches, Les Lavandes, Les Perce-Neiges (Élisabethville),
  • Three primary schools: Jean de la Fontaine, Blaise Pascal, Louis Pasteur (Élisabethville).
  • Secondary school: Benjamin Franklin (opened 1982), home to 600 pupils from neighbouring communes Épône, Mézières-sur-Seine and La Falaise. Its name is derived from the fact that Franklin stayed in Épône when he was Ambassador in France.

Pupils usually then move to the Vincent van Gogh lycée at Aubergenville.