La Chaux-de-Fonds district had a population of 39,796. Most of the population speaks French as their first language, Italian is the second most common and Portuguese is the third. There are 945 people who speak German and 32 people who speak Romansh. , the population was 48.1% male and 51.9% female. The population was made up of 12,983 Swiss men and 5,616 non-Swiss men. There were 15,077 Swiss women and 5,025 non-Swiss women. Of the population in the district, 15,595 or about 40.8% were born in La Chaux-de-Fonds and lived there in 2000. There were 4,229 or 11.1% who were born in the same canton, while 7,172 or 18.8% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 9,747 or 25.5% were born outside of Switzerland. , there were 14,871 people who were single and never married in the district. There were 17,843 married individuals, 2,700 widows or widowers and 2,824 individuals who are divorced. There were 7,211 households that consist of only one person and 786 households with five or more people. The historical population is given in the following chart: Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray id:darkgrey value:gray ImageSize = width:1020 height:210 PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:44000 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:9000 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:1800 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark: align:center bar:1850 from:start till:14868 text:"14,868" bar:1860 from:start till:20461 text:"20,461" bar:1870 from:start till:23334 text:"23,334" bar:1880 from:start till:25911 text:"25,911" bar:1888 from:start till:29174 text:"29,174" bar:1900 from:start till:38028 text:"38,028" bar:1910 from:start till:39597 text:"39,597" bar:1920 from:start till:39516 text:"39,516" bar:1930 from:start till:36811 text:"36,811" bar:1941 from:start till:32236 text:"32,236" bar:1950 from:start till:34670 text:"34,670" bar:1960 from:start till:40197 text:"40,197" bar:1970 from:start till:43518 text:"43,518" bar:1980 from:start till:38381 text:"38,381" bar:1990 from:start till:38009 text:"38,009" bar:2000 from:start till:38238 text:"38,238"
From the, 11,545 or 30.2% were Roman Catholic, while 10,955 or 28.6% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 207 members of an Orthodox church, there were 302 individuals who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 2,418 individuals who belonged to another Christian church. There were 132 individuals who were Jewish, and 1,372 who were Islamic. There were 91 individuals who were Buddhist, 83 individuals who were Hindu and 47 individuals who belonged to another church. 10,265 belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 2,014 individuals did not answer the question.
Education
In La Chaux-de-Fonds about 12,764 or of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 4,056 or have completed additional higher education. Of the 4,056 who completed tertiary schooling, 52.0% were Swiss men, 28.5% were Swiss women, 11.8% were non-Swiss men and 7.7% were non-Swiss women. In the canton of Neuchâtel most municipalities provide two years of non-mandatory kindergarten, followed by five years of mandatory primary education. The next four years of mandatory secondary education is provided at thirteen larger secondary schools, which many students travel out of their home municipality to attend. During the 2010-11 school year, there were 40 kindergarten classes with a total of 762 students in District de la Chaux-de-Fonds. In the same year, there were 116 primary classes with a total of 2,102 students.
