A substrate for an in-plane switching liquid crystal display device includes a gate line along a first direction, a data line along a second direction, the data line crossing the gate line to define a pixel region, a thin film transistor at a crossing of the gate and data lines, pixel electrodes along a third direction within the pixel region, the pixel electrodes connected to the thin film transistor, common electrodes along the third direction, the common electrodes being in an alternating pattern with the pixel electrodes, and an alignment layer covering the common electrodes and the pixel electrodes, the alignment layer having an alignment direction along the first direction.
