The La Tène culture is a European Iron Age culture named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where a rich trove of artifacts was discovered by Hansli Kopp in 1857.La Tène culture develops and flourishes during the late Iron Age (from 450 BCE to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BCE) in eastern France, Switzerland, Austria, southwest Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and Romania.

To the north extends the contemporary Jastorf culture of Northern Germany.

La Tène culture develops out of the early Iron Age Hallstatt culture without any definite cultural break, under the impetus of considerable Mediterranean influence from the Culture of Golasecca, the Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul and later Etruscan civilizations.

La Tène cultural material appears over a large area, including parts of Ireland and Great Britain (the lake dwellings at Glastonbury, England, are an example of La Tène culture), northern Spain, Burgundy, and Austria.

Elaborate burials also reveal a wide network of trade.

In Vix, France, an elite woman of the 6th century BCE was buried with a bronze cauldron made in Greece.

Exports from La Tène cultural areas to the Mediterranean cultures were based on salt, tin and copper, amber, wool and leather, furs and gold.