Lalaye (French pronunciation: [lalɛ]; German: Lach) is a commune in the southwest of the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France.

It is three kilometres (two miles) upstream of the town Villé and on the left bank of a branch of the Giessen river which tumbles down from Urbeis to the west-south-west.

The village itself is positioned at the lower end of the valley, having an average elevation of just 310 meters, shortly before the Charbes stream and the Urbeis Giessen converge.

The commune contains significant mineral deposits and has a long mining tradition: the oldest evidence of exploitation is in place known as La Hollée.

Along the route to the hamlet of Charbes is another mine known by the local language name of "Haus Osterreich" and which was worked during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

An old mylonite quarry which was still being exploited after the Second World War is located at Molloch, on a part of the same site as the old lead mine at La Hollée.

The first surviving record of it appears in an inventory compiled in 1303 by a notary named Burkhard von Fricke who was working for the powerful Habsburg family.

In the middle of the thirteenth century the Habsburgs owned the Albrecht Valley: the notary's task was to inventory the family's rights and revenues in all the villages including "Lach".

From the nineteenth century Lalaye experienced a major population exodus, primarily due to a lack of work in the valley.