Lachen, Switzerland
Encyclopedia
Lachen is a municipality
Municipalities of Switzerland
Communes , also known as municipalities, are the smallest government division in Switzerland, numbering 2,596 . While many have a population of a few hundred citizens, the largest cities such as Zürich or Geneva also have the legal status of municipalities...

 in March District in the canton of Schwyz
Canton of Schwyz
Schwyz is a canton in central Switzerland between the Alps in the south, Lake Lucerne in the east and Lake Zurich in the north, centered around and named after the town of Schwyz....

 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....

.

Geography

Lachen has an area, , of 2.4 km² (0.926645180622084 sq mi). Of this area, 26.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while 5.8% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 62.1% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (5.4%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains).

The municipality is located on a delta of the Wägi river in the upper section of Lake Zurich
Lake Zurich
Lake Zurich is a lake in Switzerland, extending southeast of the city of Zurich. It is also known as Lake Zürich and Lake of Zürich. It lies approximately at co-ordinates ....

. It is the smallest municipality in the Canton of Schwyz. The size of the village of Lachen and size of the municipality of Lachen is basically the same.

Demographics

Lachen has a population (as of ) of . , 27.2% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 14.1%. Most of the population speaks German (84.9%), with Italian being second most common ( 5.1%) and Albanian being third ( 2.4%).

the gender distribution of the population was 49.1% male and 50.9% female. The age distribution, , in Lachen is; 1,293 people or 20.6% of the population is between 0 and 19. 1,950 people or 31.1% are 20 to 39, and 2,055 people or 32.8% are 40 to 64. The senior population distribution is 489 people or 7.8% are 65 to 74. There are 347 people or 5.5% who are 70 to 79 and 138 people or 2.20% of the population who are over 80. There is one person in Lachen who is over 100 years old.

there are 2,817 households, of which 1,039 households (or about 36.9%) contain only a single individual. 115 or about 4.1% are large households, with at least five members.

In the 2007 election 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 43.2% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the FDP
Free Democratic Party of Switzerland
The Free Democratic Party was a classical liberal political party in Switzerland. It was one of the major parties in Switzerland until its merger with the smaller classical liberal Liberal Party, to form FDP.The Liberals on 1 January 2009....

 (19.4%), the SPS
Social Democratic Party of Switzerland
The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland is the largest centre-left political party in Switzerland....

 (19.1%) and 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...

 (13.9%).

The entire Swiss population is generally well educated. In Lachen about 69.2% 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...

).

Lachen has an unemployment rate of 1.98%. , there were 61 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 7 businesses involved in this sector. 859 people are employed in the secondary sector and there are 84 businesses in this sector. 2,686 people are employed in the tertiary sector, with 370 businesses in this sector.

From the , 4,141 or 66.0% are Roman Catholic, while 984 or 15.7% 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 are 179 individuals (or about 2.85% of the population) who belong to the Orthodox Church, and there are less than 5 individuals who belong to another Christian church. There are less than 5 individuals who are Jewish
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

, and 413 (or about 6.58% of the population) who are Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

ic. There are 38 individuals (or about 0.61% of the population) who belong to another church (not listed on the census), 336 (or about 5.36% of the population) belong to no church, are agnostic
Agnosticism
Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable....

 or atheist
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...

, and 178 individuals (or about 2.84% of the population) did not answer the question.

The historical population is given in the following table:
year population
1850 1,506
1900 1,971
1950 3,458
1970 4,914
1980 5,456
1990 5,995
2000 6,317
2005 6,765
2007 6,977

Weather

Lachen has an average of 149.1 days of rain per year and on average receives 1428 mm (56.2 in) of precipitation
Precipitation (meteorology)
In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation (also known as one of the classes of hydrometeors, which are atmospheric water phenomena is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation...

. The wettest month is August during which time Lachen receives an average of 186 mm (7.3 in) of precipitation. During this month there is precipitation for an average of 14.2 days. The month with the most days of precipitation is May, with an average of 14.7, but with only 139 mm (5.5 in) of precipitation. The driest month of the year is January with an average of 80 mm (3.1 in) of precipitation over 14.2 days.

Transportation

The municipality is located on the A3 motorway.
Lachen is a stop of the S-Bahn Zürich on the line S2
S2 (ZVV)
The S2 is a regional railway line of the S-Bahn Zürich on the Zürcher Verkehrsverbund , Zürich transportation network, and is one of the network's lines connecting the cantons of Zürich with Schwyz, Glarus and St...

.

Famous citizens

Joseph Joachim Raff (May 27, 1822 - June 24 or June 25, 1882) was born in Lachen.

External links

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