The municipality of Puste Ulany lies in southwest Slovakia (48° 14’ N, 17° 35’ E), in the northern part of Podunajska nizina (Danubian Lowland). Territorially, it is part of the Trnava region municipality with the seat of Trnava. Galanta is its district town.
The village cadastre sprawls across the area of 24,540,490 square metres. The elevation ranges from 118.6 to 130 meters above sea level. In respect of land value, the local soils are one of the best, and vast parts of the area are agriculturally exploited. The agricultural land represents 81.7% of the cadastre area, while 19,711,851 square metres is plough land.
The village surrounding area is one of the least forested lands in Slovakia. The forest land represents as little as 6.62% (1,626,354 square metres) of the cadastre area. South of the village, there is a sheet of greenwood that is part of the oak vegetation zone. The forest is of flood-plain character and abounds in fauna.
Another typical feature is abundance of waters and fish in the local streams. The water sheets constitute a system of six ponds and a network of three streams and three irrigation canals.
A remarkable natural landmark of the village is Ulanska mokrad (Ulany Marshland). In this originally swampy land, sprawling on the bottomland of Stolicny potok, Trnovsky kanal and Novy potok, one can find abundant flora. A research of the area revealed that it contains some critically endangered species and plants in danger of extinction, as well as highly endangered species, of which many have now been registered as only existing in certain locations. An overall boggy character of the land is also reflected in vast peat bogs as well as natural abundance of peat that was mined here in the past.
The southern border of the village cadastre area is made by Cierna voda with old meanders (dead stream branches), typical of riverbank vegetation, marshlands, meadows and meanders with willow-poplar vegetation. In the cadastre area, there is Stolicny potok, which is of similar nature than Cierna voda and the surrounding Ulanska mokrad marshland. Approximately 700 metres south of the village of Lucny dvor there is Maly Dunaj (The Little Danube).
One of the most characteristic features of the local nature is a variety and abundance of bird life. As part of the Natura 2000 project, the area spreading up to the Ulany ponds and bottomlands was declared a Bird Protected Territory of multiregional and pan-European significance. The protected area of Puste Ulany –Zelenec, with the overall area of 21,240 hectares, is one of Slovakia’s three most significant territories to nest Circus aeruginosus and Circus pygargus. The area is a regular nesting place for more than one percent of the national population of Ixobrychus minutus, Galerida cristana, Coturnix coturnic, Falco vespertinus, Falco cherrug, and Milvus migrans.
It is only natural that ambient conditions of the local environment were highly suitable for settlements of prehistoric human communities. Therefore, the dawn of the history of Puste Ulany goes far back to the ancient past. The surroundings of the village has long been known as a site of prehistoric archaeological locations, especially ones from the later Stone Age (Neolith), which has left us with many artefacts of material culture. The oldest evidence of human presence in the area of the present-day village goes back to the early and late Stone Age (Neolith – Eneolith, 5000-1900 BC). It is a stone axe-thresher from
the late Stone Age, found during a research of burial mounds at the site called „Tarnocke“. Another stone axe-thresher as well as some Eneolithic fragments were unearthed at the site of „Role pod Silvasom“ – in the irrigation line excavation groove.
Another Eneolithic find from the Puste Ulany cadastre is a number of ground stone items that were manufactured by the culture of string ceramics.
A find of a bronze spear dates back to the middle Bronze Age (approx. 1500 BC). It is likely that a Bronze Age settlement was also located at the site of Poroske, where a 2003 rescue archaeological research unearthed an obscure shallow pit containing fragments of thick-walled pots.
Probably the most significant evidence of settlement by the people of the Calenderberg culture (7th  - 5th  ct. BC) is the existence of two burial mounds located northwest of Puste Ulany, just near the borders of its rural area and the cadastre of Velky Grob. Despite considerable damage to both mounds, which was caused by agricultural activities and the resulting fragmentariness of ceramics, there were finds of ample fragmentary material with significantly sepulchral character, as well as fragments of amphoras, amphora-like vessels, crater-like vessels, cups, pots, and bowls. Just as representative are pieces of prevalent types of Halstat Era ceramics with a part of a Spindlersfeld clip and bony sculptures of animals that were discovered in the sacrificial shaft in the village residential area.
Despite the significance of these finds, a special attention for its cultural and artistic value should be given to a bony votive plate with half-relief decoration consisting of two ungulates, which proves its author was familiar with means of expression and principles of the so-called situla art that flourished in southern Europe.
Just as interesting is an almost completely uncovered early medieval object – a single countersunk compound cupola – that was discovered at the location of Poroske. This find corroborates the existence of a settlement from the period shortly before the foundation of Great Moravia, or from the period of its foundation, and puts Puste Ulany to the group of villages whose medieval settlement dates back significantly further to the past than written records show.
The first documented written reference concerning the village area in relation to the use of its original name dates back to 1221. It is mentioned in the document signed by Andrew II of Hungary, by which the king gave as a reward to his faithful Sazl three large pieces of the Tewel land, belonging to the Bratislava Castle. As the text says, a more detailed name of this land was villa Fudemus. Even though it is not quite obvious if this area represents the present-day territory of Puste Ulany, the name is indisputable in the Bratislava Chapter House writing, dated 31 May 1301, in which the name of Fudemus is stated as Fydimis to denote Tárnok.
The villa Fudemus itself was originally part of a wider territorial complex that consisted of several settlements inhabited by royal servants – royal apiarists. Originally, the complex was located in the area of the present-day villages of Puste Ulany, Velke Ulany, most of Sladkovicovo, as far as no longer existent Dudvagseg. The connection between an apiary-related historical name and the given area is seen in the name of the complex (Apca, Apka; Lat. apiarius – apiarist).
In the 13th  century, the original settlement started to fall apart, mostly as a result of the arrival of an Ancient Hungarian people and its donation division. The apiary-related name of the village however survived. In the beginning of the 15th  century, the official writings mentioned the name of Némethfödémes as well as the fact that Germans made a significant portion of the local population. In the 15th century, a later name of Pusztafödémes was stated as Óffödémes, meaning „Old Ulany“.
Following a radical decimation of the local people, destruction of the village by troops of Maximilian I of Habsburg and a plague epidemic, the name of the village was mentioned as Pusztafödémes after 1520 („puszta“ mens „waste-land“, „Födémes“ (hun.),  „Ulany“ (slov.) means „place for beehive“).
An Ottoman defeat of troops of King Louis II at the battle of Mohács in August 1526 had a great impact on the life of Puste Ulany, which was dominated exclusively by aristocratic properties in the beginning of the 16th century. Although Puste Ulany did not fall under the Ottoman administration, which demanded tax levies, the local population was exposed not only to their frequent raids, but also to mercenary lootings. The stigmatic character of this period is also reflected in the village’s renewed coat of arms.
Following the liberation from the Ottomans, the village was destroyed several times as a result of anti-Habsburg uprisings.
An important history-making part of the village was the fact that it was a nobility village up to as late as the 19th  century. Therefore, the shaping of the village image was predominantly in the hands of aristocratic families, of whom the most prominent were the ones of Balogh, Dobsa, Farkas, Fodor, Hegyi, Horvath, Koenczoel, Krisan, and Takacs. The family of Zichy was the most important epoch-making family that influenced the shape and history of the village in the 18th  and 19th  centuries. The impact of the nobility is also seen in most of the preserved historical landmarks and sights of the village, such as a made-over manor house (originally baroque), a late-baroque Roman Catholic church dating back to the first half of the 18th  century, an Evangelical church from the 18th  century, a baroque chapel, St. Joseph’s Chapel, a Trinitarian column, and a system of canals.
A local self-government representing the entire population was established quite late – as late as in the second half of the 19th century. After the nobility lost its importance, as well as following several immigrant surges, the village population experienced an economic, social and national homogenisation, which was especially seen during the era of the first Czechoslovak Republic. The ethnic purity of the local population caused the village to be a frontier zone with no access to it own railway during World War 2, and the village also lost part of its territory.
The present-day character of the village with its social, cultural and civilian infrastructure (school, kindergarten, library, community centre, medical centre, shopping centreand many shops, etc.), as well as its sports background (football stadium, multifunctional playground, gymnasium, tennis courts, fishing, hunting, cycling), is considerably marked by the population growth and a post-war dynamic development. Today the village has 1663 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2009).