MONTBÉLIARD, chief town of an arrondissement in the department of Doubs, France, is situated 1020 feet above the sea at the confluence of the Allaine and the Lusine, tributaries of the Doubs, and on the canal between the Rhine and the Rhone, about 40 miles north-east of Besançon. Once a fortified city, it still retains the old castle of the counts of Montbéliard. A bronze statue of Cuvier, the most illustrious native of Montbéliard, and several fine fountains adorn the town, which also possesses a museum of natural history and antiquities, and a Protestant normal school. Since 1870 a considerable impetus has been given to its prosperity by the arrival of Alsatian immigrants. The industries embrace watchmaking, the manufacture of .graving tools, iron wire, files, watch-springs, and pumps, cotton spinning and weaving, printing, and tanning. The chief exports are cheese, leather, and wood. The population in 1881 was 8784, of which the great majority were Protestants.

After belonging to the Burgundians and Franks, Montbéliard was, by the treaty of Verdun (843), added to Lorraine. In the 11th -century it became the capital of a countship, which formed part of the second kingdom of Burgundy, and latterly of the German empire. From the end of the 14th century until 1793 it belonged to the house of Wurtemberg. It resisted the attacks of Charles the Bold, King Louis XII., and the duke of Guise, but was taken in 1676 by Marshal Luxembourg, who razed its fortifications. In 1871 the battle of Héricourt between the French and Germans had its commencement within its walls.