This communication sets out the highlights in the changing features of industrial location, with a special attention to the town-country relationship, as established by historical research. More precisely, we suggest a simplified pattern based on the labour factor and more particularly on the labour demand. We attempt to periodize the long-term changing of industrial locations, since the « pre-industrial period ». This is not an overview of the main stages of urban and rural development, as in Bairoch or Hoehenberg & Lees. The history of change may contribute to clarify the following question, in relation with Fujita & Thisse « fundamental question »: « why don’t all economic activities tend to agglomerate in a small number of places –typically cities? ». After presenting the spatial dimension of the labour demand, we propose 3 main periods to account the spatial dynamics of industry over the last two centuries on the basis of changes in the labour demand.