Stretching over more than three kilometres in the narrow and tortuous Corrèze valley, Tulle spreads its old quarters on the hillside overlooking the river, while the Notre-Dame cathedral emerges from the heart of the town.

The origins of the town are still subject to debate today but it would seem that the present puy Saint-Clair, a rocky spur with steep slopes separating the Corrèze valley from that of the Solane, was an ideal location for the establishment of a Gallic oppidum.

The real urban centre of the region moved a few kilometres north, to the commune of Naves and the site of Tintignac, which became a crossroads between the Roman roads that followed the ancient routes of the Celtic period.

Around the places of worship began to gather the inhabitants of the country and Tulle became once again an urban centre, a status lost since the Roman conquest.

To warn the inhabitants of the town of the arrival of the Vikings, a watchtower was built on a rocky promontory at Cornil, a few kilometres downstream from the Corrèze.

In 1989, excavations under the nave of the present cathedral uncovered the remains of an apsidiole dating from the Carolingian period as well as a poly-lobed portal of Mozarabic influence.

In 2005, during construction in the vicinity of the cathedral, excavations uncovered the north wall of the medieval church of Saint-Julien, the discovery of a cemetery and three granite sarcophagi dating from the High Middle Ages.

During the Hundred Years' War, the English took the city in 1346 before being driven out of it a month later by the Count of Armagnac, suffering in quick succession two trying sieges during which the inhabitants were reduced to famine.

But in 1373, the Duke of Lancaster appeared before the city and demanded that the gates be opened to him, and, in the absence of any command, a representative assembly of the population was convened and decided to carry out a new sacking.

During the Wars of Religion, Tulle held out for the Catholics; the town first resisted the Huguenots in 1577, but the troops of the Viscount of Turenne took bloody revenge in 1585.

Numerous religious congregations settled in the town, the Recollects (1601), the Poor Clares (1605), the Feuillants (1615), the Ursulines (1618), the Bernardines (1622), the Visitandines and the Carmelites (1644) as well as the Benedictines in 1650.

It was also the beginning of the arms industry in Tulle with the establishment of a factory in 1691 resulting from the collaboration between the master harquebusier Pauphile and the financier Fénis de Lacombe.

The church was reopened for worship in 1803 but did not regain its title of cathedral until 1823, while the dome was never rebuilt, the nave being simply closed and the open space used for a promenade along the Corrèze on the current Quai Edmond-Perrier.

From 1917 onwards, trains passing on the nearby tracks would supply the thermal power station with coal at the level of the present Socio-Cultural Centre.

At the same time, work was undertaken to limit the frequent floods and to clean up the city by burying the Solane river, which until then had flowed at the foot of the buildings.

The city also acquired new public buildings in its role as the prefecture and main city of the department, such as the construction of the Town Hall (former bishopric), the Prefecture, the Hôtel Marbot (former Grand Séminaire), the Law Courts, the Post Office, the Halle-Gymnase (now the Latreille Hall) and the Lycée Edmond-Perrier, many of which were built in an Art Nouveau style.

Tulle became a garrison town from 1841, when an infantry regiment settled in the former barracks located on the Champ-de-Mars, on the current site of the Cité administrative, along the Corrèze.

In the last stages of the Algerian War and its aftermath, four military officers involved in instigating a failed coup aimed at deposing President de Gaulle were held in the prison at Tulle.

In 1972, the annex of the Army Technical Teaching School (EETAT) was created in Tulle to train electromechanical engineers, accountants and mechanics.

It was replaced in 1983 by the Gendarmerie School of Tulle, located in the barracks of La Bachellerie, which today accommodates around 1,100 gendarme students.

Until the 1980s, MAT had been the largest employer in Limousin, but the state-owned company Giat Industries, now Nexter, has carried out numerous restructurings over the last few decades, reducing the historic Tulle production site to 120 employees.