Lattes is a French commune located in the department of Herault in the region Occitan, south of Montpellier. It is mainly supply simple place for tourists in summer. The town is cut in two by the Lez, a coastal river. The territory of the municipality is partially liable to flooding, when the level of the Lez rises. Areas near the river Lez and the [Mosson river] were protected by dykes.

The majority of the city’s inhabitants live in the left bank where most of the business takes place. The Lattes-Centre and the [Boirargues] district are still separated by some farms, unused field and important commercial areas on the road going from Carnon to Montpellier.

In the south of Lattes, toward the coastline, the Pond of Mejean is the main site of the nature reserve where it is possible to appreciate bird watching. The natural house is the right place, at the entrance, to get some information about the Méjean ornithological park.

History
A castrum was born in Lattes early 12th century. In the Middle Ages, the village of Lattes played the role of the river port of Montpellier on the Lez river, downstream from the Juvenal port of Montpellier which was located at the level of the regional hotel. This is, in part, by wearing that Lattes Montpellier has become an important trading town of 12th to the 15th century in the Mediterranean, and the main port of France. This port was deeply redeveloped by Jacques Cœur in the 15th century. century because he wanted to make Montpellier the center of his commercial affairs. The site of the port was discovered in 1988 during archaeological excavations on the site of Mas Saint-Sauveur, preceding the urbanization works of the current Port Ariane; important relics from the Roman period and the 15th and 17th centuries were unearthed.

Between 1790 and 1794, the municipality of Soriech was merged with Lattes. The January 29, 1850, Lattes loses a portion of territory which partly forms the new municipality of Palavas. In the 1960s, the Société d’aménagement foncier etablissement rural (SAFER) bought the Maurin estate to accommodate a group of returnees after the war from Algeria and from Montpellier expropriated by the construction of the motorway and agrees with the town hall of Lattes to develop horticultural activities in the wine-growing plain. The domain itself hosts the SAFER. The Credit Agricole du Midi installs its headquarters next to an industrial area and the village of Maurin where settle an association of Montpellier owners wishing to settle there.

Lattes benefits from the development of the Montpellier agglomeration. While the town, without a real center, was made up of only a few houses scattered over its territory, until the early 1960s, it reached 15,000 inhabitants at the end of the 1990s.

However, almost all of the recent housing estates in Lattes-Center are built in the major bed of the Lez, itself enclosed in deep dikes. The village of Maurin was threatened by two dyke ruptures on the Mosson during the exceptional floods of 2002 and 2003 caused by thunderstorms in the Cévennes. If the Lez, a resurgence located about 30 km north of the town, did not flood the Lattoise plain in those years, there is nevertheless the problem of flooding, as in many towns at the foot of the Cévennes.

Tourism
In Lattes, on the road to Pérols, is the Henri-Prades archaeological museum. It takes its name from the Latter teacher who, with his students, discovered vestiges of the ancient port of Lattara. The museum includes finds from the site, as well as ancient collections.

The architecture of the two churches are to be seen and compared:
the Saint-Laurent church next to the town hall; Romanesque art, it dates from the 12th century,
and the recent one built on an Italian model. The latter is located in the new district of Port Ariane which is organized around a marina.
South of Lattes, the Méjean natural park on the edge of the pond of the same name allows you to walk in the middle of nature, to observe migrating birds. At the entrance to the park, the Maison de la nature welcomes visitors.

Maurin
Originally built on an agricultural estate by returnees from Algeria. It should be noted that this is where the headquarters of the Crédit Agricole du Midi bank and the Hérault SAFER responsible for the management of agricultural land are located. Maurin is a very popular and very family-friendly village: many parks and games for children in particular. This village is very animated throughout the year by its Foyer Rural and its volunteers who organize: sports and cultural activities, a carnival, the music festival, a large outdoor meal for the June festival, the festival of witches, New Year’s Eve, Maurin is one of the rare towns to have no electricity poles: everything is buried. This very green village has managed to preserve its identity and not turn into a dormitory village.

Boirargues
This district is bordered by the centers and commercial zones of the road to Carnon which extend from Lattes to Pérols in the south, the territory of Mauguio and the airport in the east. The Jean-François-Champollion high school, gray eminence and gloomy throne in the middle of these spaces. The En Avant Boirargues association (EAB) is giving a new lease of life to this lifeless neighborhood. The EAB organizes various events: music festival, harvest festival, occasional events with meals, carnival with the help of the Foyer Rural de Maurin. Little by little the bird makes its nest…

Henri Prades Museum
Active for more than 800 years, the port of Lattara was an important economic and cultural meeting place for the peoples who lived around the western basin of the Mediterranean (Etruscans, Greeks from Marseille, Iberians, Celts, Romans…) and local populations.

The ancient Lattara site, discovered by Henri Prades in 1963, constitutes an ideal observatory for studying the diversity of these exchanges. Town planning, domestic architecture, styles of life, beliefs… testify to these many influences. On a surface of 10 hectares, the basement thus delivers, little by little, all the vestiges of the civilizations which succeeded one another to the point of arousing the growing interest of national but also international archaeologists.

Jacques Coeur Theater
More than 10,000 spectators have already returned to this exceptional moment provided by the theatrical performance. The quality of the shows hosted enabled everyone to make this place of discovery, relaxation and emotion their own. Everything that the screens will never be able to reproduce, the theater has to offer.

The Municipality regularly invites schoolchildren, college and high school students to the theater to make them discover this exceptional feeling of feeling the artist close to you, to vibrate directly to the actor’s performance, to dive into a world that envelops you in a close relationship. The exhibitions linked to the program: exhibition of paintings, photos linked to the theatrical season will allow you to enter the world of shows. The Spectator’s Workshop: You can follow the process of creating a show, attend rehearsals and practice theater with the director to help you better understand the link between the text and the set.

The Saint-Laurent churc
The former three-apse Romanesque church of Saint-Laurent points to the importance of the place in the High Middle Ages; in the masonry technology of the opus monspelliensis, it is built from precisely hewn stone layers of different heights. The middle apse is divided by vertical pilaster strips, which are in turn connected to each other by a horizontal bead and cranked above the windows; below the eaves there is a figural console frieze. The northern arm of the transept with the associated side apse is in the Huguenot Wars(1562-1598) was destroyed; the southern apse is still preserved. Both outer walls of the nave were renewed and vaulted from quarry stones in the 17th century.

The unstructured and extremely undecorated west facade has been preserved and – like the apse – is built using the masonry technique of the opus monspelliensis; A useless console frieze with two crowned heads is located above a round window. The gable ends with a simple bell gable (clocher mur). The nave is barrel vaulted, the crossing has a cross ridge vaultand the apse shows the usual dome curvature, which, however, is perfectly crafted; the entire room is largely unadorned. The church building was classified as a monument historique as early as 1913.

Lattes media library
Located in the heart of Lattes, a stone’s throw from the shops and the tram, the Lattes media library invites you to discover a space dedicated to leisure and culture, training and information. You can read the newspaper, surf the internet, enjoy the mildness of spring in our reading garden. But also you can share a moment of complicity and relaxation with your children, borrow DVDs, CDs or comics, find your favorite authors, find calm to work, participate in an activity…

Grains de Méjean
Located 8km from Montpellier in the heart of a region rich in natural surroundings, this natural site stretches along the edge of the Méjean pond. It was protected in 1985 thanks to the Conservatoire du Littoral and the town of Lattes which manages it. It is a remarkable space made up of a mosaic of environments: lagoon, sansouïre, reed bed, salted meadows… Home to a variety of flora and fauna: pink flamingo, European pond turtle, summer snowflake, tazet narcissus…

The particularity of the site comes from the presence of the white storks traditionally associated with Alsace. 4 trails are available to you, open to hikers, families, naturalists… The Grains de Méjean interpretation trail with a distance of 2.5 km is also open to people with disabilities.

Port Ariane Harbor
Port Ariane reconnects with a prestigious past: the great waterway that was the Lez in the time of Jacques Coeur. Navigable river port, a stone’s throw from the cycle paths in a lovely setting, pleasant for family outings, 10 minutes on foot from tram line 3 and the tourist information office.

In the Middle Ages, Lattes played the role of the river port of Montpellier on the Lez. This is, in part, by wearing that Lattes Montpellier has become an important commercial city of the XII th to the XV th century in the Mediterranean. The remains of the port were discovered in 1988 during archaeological excavations preceding the urbanization work of the current Port Ariane.

Entertainment
The approaches to Route de Palavas and Route de Carnon are full of discos and nightclubs famous in the Montpellier region. The Latipolia complex, route de Palavas near Lattes-Center, famous for its main nightclub, the Nitropolis,
upstream towards Montpellier, the Villa Rouge has emerged as one of the main gay clubs facing the Maxximum de Palavas and the musical bars of central Montpellier.
On the Carnon road side, as soon as you enter the town of Lattes arriving from Montpellier, the Notté, the Pincho Pingo, etc. welcome young people from Montpellier.
For several years now, the Amigo bus service has been serving these party places at the start of the night and bringing customers back to the student and central districts of Montpellier in the early morning. TAM tickets are valid on this bus.

Circulate
By car, the roads from Montpellier to the sea only pose a problem in summer when migrating to the beaches or near shopping centers. On the other hand, the avenues of Lattes are very busy even though they were not initially planned for a fairly dense traffic.

By bus, several TAM (Transports de l’Agglomeration de Montpellier) lines run between Montpellier and the municipality as well as between the towns and villages of the municipality:

line 18: Montpellier Place de l’Europe – Lattes – Maurin – Montpellier Sabines or Montpellier Sabines – Maurin – Lattes – Montpellier Place de l’Europe
line 28: from Montpellier, Port Marianne station to Boirargues and Pérols (and their shopping centers). Since January 1, 2005, the line no longer joins Palavas-les-Flots and stops about 2 km before the beaches.
Line 3 of the tram will serve Lattes from summer 2012 from Montpellier Saint-Roch station and the Port Marianne district.