CORBEIL, a town of France at the head of an arrondissement in the department of Seine-et-Oise, is situated at the confluence of the Essonne with the Seine, about 18 miles S.S.E. of Paris. A bridge across the larger river unites the man part of the town with a suburb on the other side, and a continuous line of houses leads to the village of Essonnes. The church of St Spire was rebuilt in the 15th century; St Jean-en-ΓIsle belonged to the Templars, and dates from the 13th; and the corn-market was erected in 1780 by Viel. The industrial establishments in the town and neighbourhood include more than forty flour-mills, and several print-works, cotton-factories, and paper-mills.

From the 10th to the 12th century Corbeil was the chief town of a powerful countship; and it continued for a long time to be an important military post in connection with the commissariat of Paris. Of the numerous sieges to which it has been exposed, the most important are those by the duke of Burgundy in 1418, by the Huguenots in 1562, and by Alexander Farnese in 1590. The population of Corbeil proper in 1872 was 6016, and that of Essonnes, 551.