Hellikon
Encyclopedia
Hellikon (ˈhɛlːikχə) is a municipality
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...

 in the Rheinfelden district of canton
Cantons of Switzerland
The 26 cantons of Switzerland are the member states of the federal state of Switzerland. Each canton was a fully sovereign state with its own borders, army and currency from the Treaty of Westphalia until the establishment of the Swiss federal state in 1848...

 Aargau
Aargau
Aargau is one of the more northerly cantons of Switzerland. It comprises the lower course of the river Aare, which is why the canton is called Aar-gau .-History:...

 in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

. It is located in the West of the Fricktal
Fricktal
The Fricktal region is the northwest finger extending from the Swiss canton of Aargau. It is situated in Northwestern Switzerland east of Basel, between the High Rhine forming the border with Germany in the north and the Jura Mountains in the south. The Fricktal contains the districts of...

 region, around four kilometers Southwest of the border with Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and has a border with Canton Basel-Landschaft.

Geography

The village lies in the upper reaches of the Möhlin valley (Möhlintal
Möhlintal
The Möhlintal is a 10-kilometre long valley running between Möhlin and Wegenstetten in the Rheinfelden district of Canton Aargau, Switzerland. The five municipalities in the valley have a total population of around 14,000 people.In the upper valley, the valley is also known as the...

) through which flows the Möhlinbach
Möhlinbach
The Möhlinbach is a 15 kilometer long stream in Aargau canton, Switzerland....

 in a Northwesterly direction towards the Rhine. There are two parts to the village: The lower village (Unterdorf) lies parallel to the Möhlinbach for over one kilometer; The upper village (Oberdorf) lies on the West side of the valley. The flat valley floor alongside the Möhlinbach is, on average, close to 200 meters wide but widens to almost 400 meters when joined by feeder streams. The village is bordered on both sides by the hills of the Tabel Jura
Tabel Jura
The Tabel Jura are part of the Jura range of mountains in North West Switzerland....

 (Tafeljura) which have very steep lower slopes leading to flat upper plateau's that are intensively farmed.

To the East of the village rises the Wabrig plateau which is over one Kilometer wide and stretches for more than four kilometer between the Lohnberg plateau (above Zuzgen
Zuzgen
Zuzgen is a municipality in the Rheinfelden district of canton Aargau in Switzerland. It is located in the West of the Fricktal region, around three kilometers Southwest of the border with Germany and has a border with Canton Basel-Landschaft....

) and the Hersberg (above Wegenstetten
Wegenstetten
Wegenstetten is a municipality in the district of Rheinfelden in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland.-Geography:Wegenstetten has an area, , of . Of this area, or 57.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 33.5% is forested...

). A deeply cut side valley runs in a Westerly direction from the village, separating the Northern Neulig plateau from the Southern Egg plateau.

Hellikon has an area, , of 7.05 square kilometres (2.7 sq mi). Of this area, 4.29 km² (1.7 sq mi) or 60.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while 2.3 km² (0.888034964762831 sq mi) or 32.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.46 km² (0.177606992952566 sq mi) or 6.5% is settled (buildings or roads).

Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 3.7% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.1%. Out of the forested land, 30.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.7% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 37.0% is used for growing crops and 21.3% is pastures, while 2.6% is used for orchards or vine crops.

The highest point is found on the west side of the Neulig plateau (633 m (2,076.8 ft)) and the lowest at the Möhlinbach (397 m (1,302.5 ft)).

Neighbouring villages in Kanton Aargau are Zuzgen to the Northwest, Obermumpf
Obermumpf
Obermumpf is a municipality in the district of Rheinfelden in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland.-History:It is likely that there was a Hallstatt culture settlement near Obermumpf, though the exact sight has not been discovered. Near the village church the ruins of a Roman era farm were...

 to the Northeast, Schupfart
Schupfart
Schupfart is a municipality in the district of Rheinfelden in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland.-Geography:Schupfart has an area, , of . Of this area, or 60.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 32.4% is forested...

 to the East and Wegenstetten to the Southeast. Neighbouring villages in Canton Baselland are Buus
Buus
Buus is a municipality in the district of Sissach in the canton of Basel-Country in Switzerland.-Geography:Buus has an area, , of . Of this area, or 64.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 28.5% is forested...

 to the West and Hemmiken
Hemmiken
Hemmiken is a municipality in the district of Sissach in the canton of Basel-Country in Switzerland.-Geography:Hemmiken has an area, , of . Of this area, or 70.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 25.4% is forested...

 to the Southwest.

History

The first documented mention of Hellickonn dates from 1209. The low jurisdiction
High, middle and low justice
High, middle and low justices are notions dating from Western feudalism to indicate descending degrees of judiciary power to administer justice by the maximal punishment the holders could inflict upon their subjects and other dependents....

 was in the possession of the Hofes Zeiningen
Zeiningen
Zeiningen is a municipality in the district of Rheinfelden in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland.-Geography:Zeiningen has an area, , of . Of this area, or 43.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 44.2% is forested...

, which in turn were affiliated to the Stift Säckingen
Bad Säckingen
Bad Säckingen is a rural town in the administrative district of Waldshut in the state of Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It is famous as the "Trumpeteer's City" because of the book "The Trumpeteer of Säckingen", a famous 19th century novel by German author Joseph Victor von Scheffel.- Geography :Bad...

. The gentry and tenants of the "upper juristiction" were Habsburgers. After the Waldshut war of 1468 the whole Fricktal was pledged to the Duchy of Burgandy. The Burgundians were crushingly defeated by the Old Swiss Confederacy
Old Swiss Confederacy
The Old Swiss Confederacy was the precursor of modern-day Switzerland....

 during the Burgundian Wars
Burgundian Wars
The Burgundian Wars were a conflict between the Dukes of Burgundy and the Kings of France, later involving the Old Swiss Confederacy, which would play a decisive role. Open war broke out in 1474, and in the following years the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, was defeated three times on the...

 meaning that Hellikon was restoed to Austrian (Habsburg) authority by 1477. Following the country reforms of the Austrian King Maximilian I. Hellikon fell under the authority of "Further Austria
Further Austria
Further Austria or Anterior Austria was the collective name for the old possessions of the House of Habsburg in the former Swabian stem duchy of south-western Germany, including territories in the Alsace region west of the Rhine and in Vorarlberg, after the focus of the Habsburgs had moved to the...

" in 1491. The Möhlinbach territory (including Hellikon) came under the administration of the Kameralherrschaft Rheinfelden.

During the 17th century, there was very little time when peace prevailed. During the Rappenkrieg
Rappenkrieg (1612-1614)
The Rappenkrieg was a conflict that lasted from July 1612 until September 1614 in the Further Austrian district of Breisgau. It involved the Austrian rulers putting down a peasant uprising. The uprising occurred in what is now the Swiss Canton of Aargau and in the southern portion of what is now...

, a peasant uprising that lasted from 1612 until 1614 and the Thirty Year's War (1633 to 1638) the villages economic development went into decline. Also during the Pfälzer-Erbfolge Wars (1688 to 1697) foreign troops passed through the region.

As a result of the Treaty of Campo Formio
Treaty of Campo Formio
The Treaty of Campo Formio was signed on 18 October 1797 by Napoleon Bonaparte and Count Philipp von Cobenzl as representatives of revolutionary France and the Austrian monarchy...

 in 1797, the Fricktal became a French protectorate, forming the front line between the French Revolutionary and the Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n troops in the War of the Second Coalition
War of the Second Coalition
The "Second Coalition" was the second attempt by European monarchs, led by the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria and the Russian Empire, to contain or eliminate Revolutionary France. They formed a new alliance and attempted to roll back France's previous military conquests...

. On 20 February 1802 Rheinfelden was made a district capital of the newly created Canton of Fricktal, (Principality of Frickgau), joining the Helvetic Republic
Helvetic Republic
In Swiss history, the Helvetic Republic represented an early attempt to impose a central authority over Switzerland, which until then consisted mainly of self-governing cantons united by a loose military alliance, and conquered territories such as Vaud...

 in August. On the 19th February 1803 Canton Fricktal, including Hellikon, was absorbed into Canton Aargau.

At the 1875 Christmas Fair a tragic accident occurred. The stair well of the ten year old school house collapsed, killing 73 people of whom most were children. Between 1850 and 1950 the village population dropped by over twenty percent. Up to the 20th century cereals and grapes contributed the main income, however the phylloxera
Phylloxera
Grape phylloxera ; originally described in France as Phylloxera vastatrix; equated to the previously described Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, Phylloxera vitifoliae; commonly just called phylloxera is a pest of commercial grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America...

 plague and mildew
Mildew
Mildew refers to certain kinds of molds or fungi.In Old English, it meant honeydew , and later came to mean mildew in the modern sense of mold or fungus....

 epidemics effectively ended grape farming in the village. Hellikon transformed from a farming to a commuter community with ever more people moving from the Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

 region. Since the beginning of the 1980s the population has grown by almost one third.

In August 2009, Hellikon celebrated it's 800th anniversary with a large village fair.

Flag

The blazon of the municipal flags describes "Over blue, a green tripple hill and three yellow capped mushrooms". The flag was officially adopted in 1924 but it was known much earlier, although never documented. The current form of the flag dates from 1966.

Demographics

Hellikon has a population of , 5.2% of the population are foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at a rate of 1%. Most of the population speaks German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

(95.6%), with Albanian
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...

 being second most common ( 2.4%) and Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian language
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...

 being third ( 0.5%).

The age distribution, , in Hellikon is; 62 children or 8.1% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 85 teenagers or 11.1% are between 10 and 19. Of the adult population, 100 people or 13.1% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 85 people or 11.1% are between 30 and 39, 134 people or 17.5% are between 40 and 49, and 131 people or 17.1% are between 50 and 59. The senior population distribution is 69 people or 9.0% of the population are between 60 and 69 years old, 54 people or 7.0% are between 70 and 79, there are 41 people or 5.4% who are between 80 and 89,and there are 5 people or 0.7% who are 90 and older.

the average number of residents per living room was 0.61 which is about equal to the cantonal average of 0.57 per room. In this case, a room is defined as space of a housing unit of at least 4 m² (43.1 sq ft) as normal bedrooms, dining rooms, living rooms, kitchens and habitable cellars and attics. About 78.4% of the total households were owner occupied, or in other words did not pay rent (though they may have a mortgage
Mortgage loan
A mortgage loan is a loan secured by real property through the use of a mortgage note which evidences the existence of the loan and the encumbrance of that realty through the granting of a mortgage which secures the loan...

 or a rent-to-own agreement).

, there were 10 homes with 1 or 2 persons in the household, 108 homes with 3 or 4 persons in the household, and 132 homes with 5 or more persons in the household. , there were 253 private households (homes and apartments) in the municipality, and an average of 2.9 persons per household. there were 177 single family homes (or 57.7% of the total) out of a total of 307 homes and apartments. There were a total of 2 empty apartments for a 0.7% vacancy rate. , the construction rate of new housing units was 6.5 new units per 1000 residents.

In the 2007 federal election
Swiss federal election, 2007
Elections to the Swiss Federal Assembly, the federal parliament of Switzerland, were held on Sunday, 21 October 2007. In a few cantons, a second round of the elections to the Council of States was held on 11 November, 18 November, and 25 November 2007...

 the most popular party was the SVP
Swiss People's Party
The Swiss People's Party , also known as the Democratic Union of the Centre , is a conservative political party in Switzerland. Chaired by Toni Brunner, but spearheaded by Christoph Blocher, the party is the largest party in the Federal Assembly, with 58 members of the National Council and 6 of...

 which received 51.3% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP
Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland
The Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland is a Christian democratic political party in Switzerland. It is the fourth-largest party in the National Council, with 31 seats, and the largest in the Council of States, with 15 seats. It has one seat, that of Doris Leuthard, on the Swiss...

 (20.8%), the Green Party
Green Party of Switzerland
The Green Party of Switzerland is the fifth-largest party in the National Council of Switzerland, and the largest party that is not represented on the Federal Council.-History:...

 (9.6%) and the SP
Social Democratic Party of Switzerland
The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland is the largest centre-left political party in Switzerland....

 (7.6%).

The historical population is given in the following table:
year population
1768 252
1850 681
1870 705
1900 581
1950 539
2000 747

Religion

From the , 389 or 52.1% were Roman Catholic, while 110 or 14.7% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church
Swiss Reformed Church
The Reformed branch of Protestantism in Switzerland was started in Zürich by Huldrych Zwingli and spread within a few years to Basel , Bern , St...

. Of the rest of the population, there were 148 individuals (or about 19.81% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic
Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland
The Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland is the Swiss member church of the Union of Utrecht, also known as Old Catholic Church, originally founded by the jansenists, with a later influx of discontented Catholics following their disappointment with the First Vatican Council. It has 14,000...

 faith. This gives Hellikon the highest proportion of Christ Catholics in Switzerland.

Economy

, Hellikon had an unemployment rate of 1.65%. , there were 88 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 30 businesses involved in this sector. 47 people are employed in the secondary sector and there are 15 businesses in this sector. 28 people are employed in the tertiary sector, with 11 businesses in this sector.

there were 365 workers who lived in the municipality. Of these, 270 or about 74.0% of the residents worked outside Hellikon while 40 people commuted into the municipality for work. There were a total of 135 jobs (of at least 6 hours per week) in the municipality. Of the working population, 14.5% used public transportation to get to work, and 48.8% used a private car.

Small businesses are active in plastic work and building. Most of working population of Hellikon are commuters, working in the larger Fricktal municipalities and the Basel agglomeration.

Transport links

Hellikon lies on the unclassified road running along the Möhlintal from Möhlin
Möhlin
Möhlin |Rheinfelden]] in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland.-History:The area around Möhlin was prehistorically settled. A neolithic settlement has been discovered at Chleizelgli, while scattered Bronze Age items were discovered around the municipality. There was a Roman era estate as well as...

 to Wegenstetten. A small side road leads to Buus. The nearest intersections with the A3 motorway can be found at Rheinfelden and Eiken
Eiken, Switzerland
Eiken is a municipality in the district of Laufenburg in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland.-History:The land was probably already occupied in the Roman era and individual objects from the Alamanni and Frankish Empire eras. Eiken is first mentioned in the first half of the 12th Century as Eitchon...

. Connection with the public transport network is through the Postauto bus route in either the direction of Möhlin or Weggenstetten.

Sights

The entire village of Hellikon is designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites
Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites
The Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites is part of a 1981 Ordinance of the Swiss Federal Council implementing the Federal Law on the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage.-Sites of national importance:-Types:...

.

Education

The entire Swiss population is generally well educated. In Hellikon about 65.1% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule
Fachhochschule
A Fachhochschule or University of Applied Sciences is a German type of tertiary education institution, sometimes specialized in certain topical areas . Fachhochschulen were founded in Germany and later adopted by Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Greece...

). Of the school age population , there are 59 students attending primary school in the municipality.

The municipality has one Kindergarten and one Primary School. Middle and Secondary schools are located in Möhlin and shared by the entire Möhlintal. Alternative secondary schools are available in Wegenstetten and Zeiningen for those who do not wish to proceed into further education. Thanks to an inter-cantonal agreement, youngsters from the Fricktal may attend the college in Muttenz
Muttenz
Muttenz is a municipality with a population of approximately 17,000 in the canton of Basel-Country in Switzerland. It is located in the district of Arlesheim and next to the city of Basle.-History:...

(canton Baselland).

External links

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