Le Locle (French pronunciation: [lə lɔkl]; German: Luggli) is a municipality in the Canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.

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.

[3] 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.

[4] Restored historic underground mills (grainmill, oilmill, sawmill) can be seen in a cave located about one kilometer (0.6 miles) west of the city center.

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 1,000 m (3,300 ft)) and the lack of water (porous limestone underground) the land is ill-suited to farming.

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.

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.

[6] 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.

[7] The earliest traces of human settlements come from the end of the Mesolithic period (6000–5000 BC) in shelter in the Col des Roches.

The site includes the oldest pottery found in the Canton of Neuchâtel, along with many tools, the molar of a mammoth and deer and wild boar bones.

[7] In 1150 the valley, in which Le Locle would later be built, was granted by Renaud and William Valanginian to the abbey of Fontaine-André.

In 1360, John II of Aarberg, the Lord of Valanginian, received Le Locle as a fief from Count Louis of Neuchâtel.

The heavily wooded portion of the Jura Mountains around Le Locle, were cleared by colonists who later received the status of free peasants.

The inhabitants of Le Locle were given the right to own land that they had cleared, as long as they continued to farm it and paid taxes on it.

[7] As a result of increasing cross-border conflicts, in 1476, Le Locle entered into a defensive alliance with Bern.

[7] In 1592, the Valangin fiefs returned to the County of Neuchâtel, but neither the legal status of residents of the Mairie of Le Locle or its function as a district court was affected.

The 1476 alliance with Bern remained in effect and during the Thirty Years' War as well as the invasion of Louis XIV in Franche-Comté, Bernese soldiers came to support the town.

Le Locle's location near the French border meant that the town often enjoyed a close relationship with France.

Many residents of Le Locle met in the Jacobin club in Morteau to swear their support of the Constitution of 1792.

Napoléon Bonaparte deposed King Frederick William III of Prussia as prince of Neuchâtel and appointed instead his chief of staff Louis-Alexandre Berthier.

A year later he agreed to allow the principality to join the Swiss Confederation, then not yet an integrated federation, but a confederacy, as a full member.

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.

The bookseller and publisher Samuel Girardet (1730–1807) started decorating clock cases and eventually founded a dynasty of artists and engravers.

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.

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

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.

[15] The historical population is given in the following chart:[7][19] 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.

The number of jobs in the primary sector was 71, of which 49 were in agriculture, 17 were in forestry or lumber production and 5 were in fishing or fisheries.