During the town's first 250 years, Repentigny was only inhabited by a few hundred peasants, or habitants, and was an agricultural community.

Repentigny was also the western terminus of the Chemin du Roy, a road that extends eastward towards Quebec City.

The largest visible minority groups were Black (9.9%), Arab (3.3%), and Latin American (2.2%) 85.8% of residents spoke French as their mother tongue.

Other common first languages were Spanish (2.3%) Arabic (2.0%), Haitian Creole (1.8%) English (1.7%), Kabyle (0.7%), and Italian (0.6%).

Thus, Repentigny is directly connected to Terrebonne, Charlemagne, L'Assomption, Montreal, Montréal-Est, Saint-Sulpice, Lavaltrie, Lanoraie, Sainte-Geneviève-de-Berthier, Berthierville, La Visitation-de-l'Île-Dupas, Saint-Ignace-de-Loyola, Saint-Paul-d'Industrie, Crabtree, Sainte-Marie-Salomé and Joliette.

The city of Repentigny takes part in the L'Assomption MRC public transportation network effort and pan-regional Lanaudière Regional Transport Commission, linking all of the Regional County Municipalities of Lanaudière, even the northernmost ones.