Laguiole knife
Overview
Occitania
Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language...
pocket-knife, originally produced in the town of Laguiole
Laguiole
Laguiole is a commune in the Aveyron department in southern France.It is known for its Laguiole cheese, which has an Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée , and as the birthplace of the Laguiole knife. The name of the village comes from la gleisòla, meaning a little church.-Population:-References:*...
in the Aveyron
Aveyron
Aveyron is a département in southern France named after the Aveyron River.- History :Aveyron is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790....
region of southern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.
The word laguiole is a generic term, not legally restricted to any one company or place of manufacture. Such knives are produced by a number of unrelated companies in southern France, with some 70% of production coming from Thiers
Thiers, Puy-de-Dôme
Thiers is a commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department in Auvergne in central France. Thiers is twinned with Bridgnorth, England and Schrobenhausen, Germany.Thiers is built upon a hillside along the Durolle river valley...
, a long-established centre of the cutlery industry.
The ancestor of the laguiole is most likely the Arabo-Hispanic clasp knife of Andalusian Spain, the navaja
Navaja
The navaja is a traditional Spanish folding-blade fighting and utility knife. One of the oldest folding knife patterns still in production, the first true navajas originated in the Andalusian region of southern Spain...
.
