Pforzheim is one of the regional centers (Oberzentrum) in Baden-W�rttemberg and has one of the highest densities of industrial activity in the state.
Pforzheim is historically an important jewelry and watch-making centre in Germany. Due to this reason, Pforzheim is nicknamed as Golden City. Jewelry and watch-making industry is first set up by Jean Fran�ois Autran after receiving an edict from then overlord Margrave Karl Friedrich von Baden. This enterprise is later joined by other commercial enterprises and helped Pforzheim to become an important manufacturing city. Pforzheim accounts for just under 70 percent of the total sales of the German jewelry and silverware industry and around 80 percent of all the pieces of jewelry exported by Germany come from Pforzheim.
However, a smaller fraction of the economy nowadays is dedicated to producing the traditional products of watches and jewellery. Only 11,000 people are employed in the jewelry and watch-making industries. Two thirds of all employment positions are made available in the areas of metal processing, dental industry electronics and electro-technology. The mail order companies (Bader, Klingel, Wenz) with their sales volumes in the order of millions of Euros occupies a leading position in Germany. Tourism is gaining importance. In this respect the city benefits from its favorable Three-Valleys location at the gateway to the Black Forest, and related to this, from the starting points of a large number of hiking, cycling and waterway routes. The European long-distance trail E1 passes through Pforzheim. It is also the starting point of the Black Forest Hiking Routes
The Federal Freeway A8 (Perl - Bad Reichenhall) runs by just to the north of the city. The city can be accessed via four freeway exits. The Interstate Road B10 (Lebach - Augsburg) and B294 (Gundelfingen - Bretten) run through the city. The B463 Interstate Road running toward Nagold has its starting point here.
Pforzheim
