with most European cities' meandering streets. The central avenue is named the Avenue Léopold Robert. History of the watch-making industry in La-Chaux-de-Fonds In the second half of the 18th century, the Swiss watch industry was on the rise. Parallel to this and despite residency bans, Jewish traders began to settle in the region, and became involved in the industry. From 1848 onwards, restrictions on residence and settlement of Jews were gradually alleviated in the Canton of Neuchâtel. In the 1870s, as American companies began to produce watches and watch parts on an industrial scale, the Swiss watch industry experienced a crisis. The traditional model of the individual craftsmen was not compatible with the faster-industrialised production rates, but from the 1880s, modernisation slowly but surely took hold in the Swiss watch industry. One of the first modern factories was founded by the Ditesheim brothers Achilles, Leopold and Isidore, who had moved to La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1876. Having joined the trade towards the end of the 19th century, many Jewish manufacturers were less bound to the traditional ideas. Thus, they were particularly involved and invested in modernisation processes. The Ditesheim company gained international renown and was renamed “Movado” in 1905. Encouraged by economic success, more newcomers arrived, among them many Jews. Of the 180 or so medium-sized family businesses in the town, about 30 per cent were owned by Jewish families in 1912. The Jewish community had grown from 541 to 900 members in the span of about 20 years. During the First World War, the watch companies largely received armament commissions (for instance for the production of precision fuses for artillery shells). These commissions died down with the end of the war. From 1933, with the arrival of the Second World War, Jewish producers began to struggle, as their Jewish contacts in occupied countries increasingly faced persecution. Some Jewish companies in La Chaux-de-Fonds were under surveillance from German spies, suspected of illegally exporting war materials for the Allied Forces. Geography La Chaux-de-Fonds has an area, , of . Of this area, or 54.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 27.9% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 16.7% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.5% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.2% is unproductive land. Of the built-up area, industrial buildings made up 1.6% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 8.4% and transportation