Le Locle (; ) is a municipality in the Canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.

It is situated in the Jura Mountains, a few kilometers from the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds.

It is the third smallest city in Switzerland (in Switzerland a place needs more than 10,000 inhabitants to be considered a city).

Le Locle is known as a center of Swiss watchmaking, even cited as the birthplace of the industry, with roots dating back to the 1600s. The municipality has been home to manufactures such as Favre-Leuba, Mido, Zodiac, Tissot, Ulysse Nardin, Zenith, Montblanc, Certina as well as Universal Genève, before the latter company relocated to Geneva. The town's history in watchmaking is documented at one of the world's premier horological museums, the Musée d'Horlogerie du Locle, Monts Castle, located in a 19th-century country manor on a hill north of the city. Restored historic underground mills (grainmill, oilmill, sawmill) can be seen in a cave located about one kilometer () west of the city center.

The name of the town derives from the word for lake or trou d'eau.

Unesco World Heritage Sites

Le Locle, as well as La Chaux-de-Fonds, owes its survival to the manufacturing and exports of watches. The industry of watch making was brought to Le Locle in the 17th century by Daniel Jeanrichard, a self-taught watchmaker who encouraged the farmers of the area to start manufacturing watch components for him during the long winters. In the 20th century, the micro-mechanical industry was added.

The watchmaking cities of Le Locle and La Chaux-de-Fonds have jointly received recognition from UNESCO for their exceptional universal value.

Due to the altitude (around ) and the lack of water (porous limestone underground) the land is ill-suited to farming. Planning and buildings reflect the watch-making artisans' need for rational organization. They were rebuilt in the early 19th century, after extensive fires.

Along an open-ended scheme of parallel strips on which residential housing and workshops intermingle, their town planning reflects the needs of the local watch-making culture that dates back to the 17th century, and which is still alive today. Both towns present outstanding examples of mono-industrial manufacturing towns, which are still well-preserved and active. Their urban planning has accommodated the transition from the artisans’ production of a cottage industry to the more concentrated factory production of the late 19th and 20th centuries.

Karl Marx described La Chaux-de-Fonds as a “huge factory-town” in Das Kapital, where he analyzed the division of labour in the watch-making industry of the Jura.

It is the tenth Swiss site to be awarded World Heritage status, joining others such as the Old City of Bern, the Rhaetian Railway, and the Abbey and Convent of St. Gall.

History

Le Locle is first mentioned in 1332 as dou Locle.

Le Locle was home to a number of famous watchmakers and inventors, including Abraham-Louis Perrelet, Jacques-Frédéric Houriet, Frédéric-Louis Favre-Bulle and David-Henri Grandjean. Watch manufacturers such as Tissot, Zenith, Ulysse Nardin, Universal Genève, and Doxa all trace their roots to Le Locle. In the 19th century the town was known for its pocket and marine chronometers. The watchmaking industry transformed Le Locle into an industrial city. Initially all the work was done by hand in small shops, but by the last quarter of the 19th century the first factories were built. The introduction of mechanized production, pushed the industry from completed watches toward machine tools and watch components. During the two World Wars, some plants, such as Zenith, later Dixi, specialized in the production of weapons. Watchmaking also required a number of associated artists and inventors. The bookseller and publisher Samuel Girardet (1730–1807) started decorating clock cases and eventually founded a dynasty of artists and engravers. The Huguenin became famous for their work painting clock housings and medals. Opening in 1856, the chocolate and confectionery factory Klaus operated until 1992.

As in most watchmaking cities in the Jura, the political and social life in Le Locle was heavily influenced by the ideas of radicalism, socialism and later anarchism. Professor James Guillaume proposed the creation of a section of the Workers International in 1866. German-speaking socialist organizations including the Grütliverein and the Arbeiterverein testify that by the end of the 19th century, many workers from the German-speaking Switzerland worked in Le Locle. The Socialists organized themselves into a political party in 1897 and by 1912 were a majority in the municipality. In 1956, they allied and were supported by the Swiss Party of Labour. The Socialists lost their seat in the local government council in the 1992 elections, to the movement Droit de parole, which does not have a traditional party platform. In 2004, for the first time the council was determined by a plebiscite, which gave the Swiss Party of Labour (PdA) three seats, the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (PS) and the liberale Parti progressiste national one seat each.

Geography

thumb|Col des Roches canyon

thumb|Aerial view (1959)

Le Locle is located on the Swiss side of the cluse Col des Roches, which forms the border between France and Switzerland.

Le Locle has an area, (as of the 2004/09 survey), of . Of this area, or 53.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 29.9% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 15.9% is settled (buildings or roads) and or 0.2% is unproductive land.

Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 1.4% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 7.7% and transportation infrastructure made up 4.7%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.3%. Out of the forested land, 26.7% of the total land area is heavily forested and 3.2% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.0% is used for growing crops and 33.8% is pastures and 19.6% is used for alpine pastures.

Coat of arms

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Lozengy Gules and Or, on a Bar Argent a Barrulet wavy Azure, in Base on a panel Argent issuant from three mounts Vert as many Pine trees of the same. However, the official coat of arms (which is rarely used) is Quartered: bendy of eight serrated gules and vert in 1 and 4 and or five flamules azure issuant from the flank in 2 and 3, overall a cross argent.

Demographics

thumb|upright|Hotel Trois Rois in Le Locle

thumb|upright|Maison duBois in Le Locle

Le Locle has a population () of . , 26.0% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of −2.8%. It has changed at a rate of 0% due to migration and at a rate of −2.2% due to births and deaths.

Most of the population () speaks French (9,264 or 88.0%) as their first language, Italian is the second most common (423 or 4.0%) and German is the third (203 or 1.9%). There are 6 people who speak Romansh. Of the population in the municipality, 3,884 or about 36.9% were born in Le Locle and lived there in 2000. There were 1,882 or 17.9% who were born in the same canton, while 1,576 or 15.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 2,639 or 25.1% were born outside of Switzerland.

, there were 4,713 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.1 persons per household. , the construction rate of new housing units was 0.1 new units per 1000 residents.

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bar:1850 from:start till:8514 text:"8,514"

bar:1860 from:start till:9301 text:"9,301"

bar:1870 from:start till:10215 text:"10,215"

bar:1880 from:start till:10387 text:"10,387"

bar:1888 from:start till:11226 text:"11,226"

bar:1900 from:start till:12559 text:"12,559"

bar:1910 from:start till:12722 text:"12,722"

bar:1920 from:start till:12463 text:"12,463"

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bar:1960 from:start till:13762 text:"13,762"

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Heritage sites of national significance

The Ancien Hôtel des Postes, Monts Castle and the Museum d’horlogerie, City Hall, the Immeuble, Moulins souterrains du Col-des-Roches (Cave mills in the Col des Roches), the Villa Favre-Jacot and Zenith SA are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site: La Chaux-de-Fonds/Le Locle, Watchmaking Town Planning (since 2009) and the entire town of Le Locle and village of Les Brenets are part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.

<gallery>

File:Château des Monts 1.JPG| Château des Monts

File:Villa Favre-Jacot 2.JPG|Villa Favre-Jacot

File:Le Locle Hôtel de Ville.jpg|Town hall

File:Le Locle, Zenith 1.JPG|Zenith building

File:Le Locle, château des Monts, Musée d'Horlogerie.jpg|Watch Museum of Le Locle at Château des Monts

File:Plaque commémorative Hans-Christian Andersen, Le Locle, Suisse.jpg|Street Crêt Vaillant 28, Houriet house

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Modern Art

Exomusée was born in 2018 with one painted wall. In 2025 this open-air museum shows 47 houses with masterpieces of urban art.

  • https://exomusee.ch/

Politics

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the PdA Party which received 24.8% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP (22.38%), the SVP (20.57%) and the LPS Party (16.13%). In the federal election, a total of 3,204 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 49.3%.

Economy

, Le Locle had an unemployment rate of 7.6%. , there were 95 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 38 businesses involved in this sector. 5,355 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 196 businesses in this sector. 2,409 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 300 businesses in this sector.

, there were 4,232 workers who commuted into the municipality and 1,877 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 2.3 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. About 26.2% of the workforce coming into Le Locle are coming from outside Switzerland, while 0.2% of the locals commute out of Switzerland for work. Of the working population, 13.7% used public transportation to get to work, and 59.6% used a private car. During the 2010–11 school year, there were 10 kindergarten classes with a total of 185 students in Le Locle. In the same year, there were 31 primary classes with a total of 564 students.

, there were 622 students in Le Locle who came from another municipality, while 250 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

Transportation

Le Locle has several railway stations; the primary one is , on the Neuchâtel–Le Locle-Col-des-Roches line, with frequent service to and .

Le Remontoir is an inclined elevator between Le Locle railway station and the city centre.

International relations

Le Locle is twinned with:

{| class="wikitable"

|- valign="top"

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  • Gérardmer, France

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  • Sidmouth, Devon, England

|}

Notable people

160px|thumb|Lucien Lesna, ca. 1898

  • Charles Girardet (1813 in Le Locle – 1871) a painter and illustrator
  • Charles-Alexandre Steinhäuslin (1827 in Le Locle – 1890) a Swiss artist, soldier, businessman and politician
  • Charles B. Borel (1883 in Le Locle – 1960) an American horse racing jockey, won the 1917 Kentucky Derby
  • Lucien Lesna (1863 in Le Locle – 1932) cyclist, won the 1901 and 1902 Paris–Roubaix races
  • Oscar Tschirky (1866–1950) Maître d'hôtel at Hotel Waldorf Astoria New York
  • Paul Konrad (1877 in Le Locle – 1948) a Swiss geometrician and amateur mycologist
  • Henri Rheinwald (1884 in Le Locle – 1968) cyclist
  • Pierre Favre (born 1937 in Le Locle) jazz drummer
  • André Jeanquartier (born 1941 in Le Locle) a Swiss jazz pianist
  • Francis Matthey (born 1942 in Le Locle) Swiss politician
  • Bernard Challandes (born 1951 in Le Locle) soccer coach
  • Sébastien Jeanneret (born 1973 in Le Locle) a former Swiss football player, nearly 300 club caps and 18 for Switzerland

Notes and references

  • Ulysse Nardin, 1846
  • Unesco World Heritage List: Le Locle & La Chaux-de-Fonds
  • Le Locle website
  • https://exomusee.ch/