Montbéliard

▪ France

      town, Doubs département, Franche-Comté région, eastern France, between the Vosges and the Jura mountains, 11 miles (17 km) from the Swiss frontier. In a highly industrialized area at the confluence of the Allaine and Luzine rivers, it lies north of the Canal du Rhône au Rhin and of a loop in the Doubs River.

      The town is known to have been in existence in the 8th century. The lordship of Montbéliard became a countship in the 12th century, after which Montbéliard came into the possession of the dukes of Württemberg, who administered it from the end of the 14th century until the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century.

      Manufacturing still employs an unusually high proportion of the workforce and is dominated overwhelmingly by the automobile assembly and automobile components industries. Much of the activity of the town's hinterland is also related to the automobile industry. Some diversification has occurred through the production of motorcycles, leather goods, and packaging. Montbéliard is also a commercial and administrative centre and has a branch of the University of Franche-Comté.

      The château of the counts of Montbéliard, on a rocky promontory dominating the town, has towers dating from the 15th and 16th centuries; it houses a museum of natural history and (in an 18th-century extension) an art museum. Pop. (1999) 27,570; (2005 est.) 26,500.

* * *