Locarno, town in southern Switzerland, in the canton of Ticino, on the northern shore of Lake Maggiore. The town is a vacation resort with a mild Mediterranean climate. In October 1925 the Locarno Treaties, seven treaties for mutual security, were signed here by diplomatic representatives of Germany, Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. The treaties were ratified in London in December 1925. The so-called “spirit of Locarno,” the confidence engendered by the Locarno treaties, prevailed until 1936, when Germany remilitarized the Rhineland. Population (1998) 14,312.
