Kruth

Last week, in search of an adventure to a place that I’d probably never get the chance to go back to, I decided to take the weekend to make a visit to Kruth, a small town in northeastern France which sits directly across from the Black Forest on the French German border, buried between a plethora of mountains and lakes. Going in, my plan was to spend Saturday hiking a tour of the mountains, which I had mapped out in advance, and using whatever other time I had trying to explore the town and surrounding area. As I planned my trip, I found that Kruth – as well as the surrounding towns – had almost no descriptive information to be found anywhere on the internet, which required me to do all of my pre-planning with whatever information I was able to gather from Google Maps and my Airbnb listing – the only lodging option I was able to find within the area.

As I arrived to Kruth, slightly nervous about what I was walking into – I had plenty of time to build my nerves as the route required me to take 2 regional train routes start to finish – I got off the train and realized that the internet has no information about this town not just because it is largely unimportant, but also because there isn’t anything (or anyone) there. Arriving to my Airbnb, where the hosts spoke only French – they had told me beforehand that they spoke German but the only English words they were able to get out the entire time were “I don’t speak German” – I learned via cognates and hand motions that I was one of the first people to ever book with them on Airbnb and that most locals’ favorite thing to do there was leave. Nevertheless, I went to the local grocery store – where the selection was limited to cold-cuts, bacon, croissants, and beer – to get dinner (there were no restaurants) and walked down all three of the town’s roads before going to bed for my hike on Saturday.

As I began my initial ascent up the mountain – which made clear why my Airbnb hosts found the only thing important enough to put into google translate to be that there was a bus that would take you to the top, which was not true according to every public bus schedule – I started to realize the appeal that comes with living in such a small, removed town as I looked down on it from the trail. The entire town was completely silent the entire time I was there, nobody was in any kind of hurry to get anything done, and there wasn’t anything at all going on to be concerned about. While I see the appeal however, I became curious with how exactly a town like this is able to operate – if there’s nothing to do for miles, what do they do? Where does the population of Kruth work, who is paying for the infrastructure in a town where nobody lives, do people move in and out of Kruth or are these houses all just family estate – while most of the buildings were pretty well kept, it didn’t seem like there was much new development in recent decades.

Kruth, including its small ‘suburban’ area of bunched houses about a half mile from the city center, where I stayed, has a population of 910 permanent residents with only 19 residents ‘counted separately’ – this indicates someone who is a registered resident of Kruth but actually lives somewhere else, a student or someone with a vacation home for example. I found this interesting given that it disproved my main theory regarding the town, which was that it was a popular seasonal home location given its serene vibe. A study by France’s National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies claims Kruth holds an unemployment rate of 12.3%, but confirms that the vast majority of Kruth’s working population is forced to work outside of their home city – the city of Kruth has 390 actively employed citizens but only 131 jobs available in Kruth itself, the vast majority of which are at local development agencies and corner stores. While there seems to be little more supporting information surrounding how Kruth operates – in general or economically – I remain curious about the average attitude about the city by residents and how exactly it operates economically. Throughout my entire time there, I saw a maximum of 6 people and one business, bringing me to wonder more about town logistics.

Sean

1. Dossier complet commune de kruth (68171). Insee. (2025, April 1). https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/2011101?geo=COM-68171#chiffre-cle-8
2. Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. (2023, December). Populations légales en vigueur à compter du 1er janvier 2024 – Haut Rhin.