Les Planchettes

Les Planchettes (le plɑ̃ʃɛt) is a municipality in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. Les Planchettes is first mentioned in 1455 as Les Planchotes. Les Planchettes has an area, , of . Of this area, or 37.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 56.8% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 3.0% is settled (buildings or roads), or 2.6% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.2% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 1.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.1%. Out of the forested land, 52.3% of the total land area is heavily forested and 4.4% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.3% is used for growing crops and 22.6% is pastures and 14.6% is used for alpine pastures. Of the water in the municipality, 1.8% is in lakes and 0.8% is in rivers and streams. The municipality is located north of La Chaux-de-Fonds. The municipality stretches from the Doubs river to the northern slope of the Pouillerel. It was located in the district of La Chaux-de-Fonds, until the district level was eliminated on 1 January 2018. The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Chevron rised Argent, and Argent an inscription 1812 Sable. 1812 refers to the foundation of the municipality. Les Planchettes has a population () of . , 6.4% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 0.4%. It has changed at a rate of -8.7% due to migration and at a rate of 9.1% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks French (205 or 91.1%) as their first language, German is the second most common (16 or 7.1%) and Dutch is the third (2 or 0.9%). There is 1 person who speaks Italian. the population was 48.9% male and 51.1% female. The population was made up of 100 Swiss men (45.2% of the population) and 8 (3.6%) non-Swiss men. There were 109 Swiss women (49.3%) and 4 (1.8%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 71 or about 31.6% were born in Les Planchettes and lived there in 2000.