Abstract The article considers where and how the silk industry was located in the urban space of Lyons. It also explores how the changing nature of silk production and manufacture influenced the institutional arrangements and physical character of the city. Several sub-periods are considered between the early seventeenth to the early twentieth century, each with different spatial logics largely defined by changes in the governance of the trade. This study offers new insights into how a dominant industrial activity reorganized the spaces of a major city and how the resulting social structure affected its spatial pattern. In so doing, space is accorded a more central role in understanding urban development, while recognizing that social, economic and political forces also modify this materiality. Historical Geographical Information Systems (HGIS) facilitate greater precision in terms of urban locations and thereby utilize written qualitative and quantitative sources more effectively.