Where is the Large Hadron Collider?

The Large Hadron Collider is located at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, straddling the border between Switzerland and France. It is a 27-kilometer circular underground accelerator used to smash protons and heavy ions together at extremely high energies. The LHC became world-famous in 2012 when it helped confirm the Higgs boson, a particle predicted by the Standard Model of physics. Its underground location reduces surface disruption and allows the massive machine to operate in a controlled environment. The collider is part of a broader network of detectors and experimental halls beneath the countryside around Geneva.