Andermatt is a municipality in the canton of Uri in Switzerland.

With Realp and Hospental, it is located in the Urseren valley, south of Altdorf.

Geography

Andermatt has an area, , of . Of this area, 40.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while 5.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 1.7% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (52%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains). , 0.4% of the total land area was heavily forested, while 5.1% is covered in small trees and shrubbery. Of the agricultural land, 4.3% is used for orchards or vine crops and 36.5% is used for alpine pastures. Of the settled areas, 0.5% is covered with buildings, and 1.1% is transportation infrastructure. Of the unproductive areas, 0.5% is unproductive standing water (ponds or lakes), 1.0% is unproductive flowing water (rivers), there is 30.9% that is too rocky for vegatation, and 19.7% is other unproductive land.

Andermatt is located in a high Alpine valley—the Ursern Valley—in the Adula Alps. Since the opening of the Schöllenen route, around 1200, Andermatt has been on the Gotthard route.

Transport

Andermatt serves as a crossroads between southern Switzerland and the North as well as between eastern Switzerland i.e. Graubünden/Grisons and Western Switzerland, i.e. Valais, Berne and the Swiss Romande. The town is thus connected by four Alpine passes: the Oberalp Pass (6,706 ft; 2,044 m.) to the East, the St. Gotthard Pass (6,909 ft; 2,106 m.) to the South, the Furka Pass (7,992 ft; 2,436 m.) to the West, as well as the Göschenertal Pass (4,652 ft; 1,418 m.) to the North. The Schöllenen Gorge in the Reuss Valley between Andermatt and Göschenen is the location of the infamous Devil's Bridge.

History

Archaeological finds dating back to 4,000 BC indicate that the Ursern Valley was populated already in the Neolithic period. During Roman times this Alpine valley was probably inhabited by some Helvetic Celtic tribes. However, the origins of Andermatt can only be traced back to Alemannic tribes, the Walsers, who established settlements in the area, where the current town of Andermatt is situated.

The parish of Andermatt was not mentioned until the year of 1203 AD, serving as a tenure to the Benedictine Disentis Abbey. This first mention refers to it as de Prato. In 1290 it was mentioned as A der Matte. In 1649 AD, with the emergence of an independent Swiss Confederation, the ecclesiastical rights of the Monastery Disentis were revoked in favour of civil legislation.

In the Flight of the Earls, Gaelic earls lost a fortune of gold down at the Devil's Bridge crossing ravine on St Patrick's Day in 1608. It has never been recovered and is known as the Lost Treasure of the St Gotthard Pass.

Nearby Schöllenen Gorge is the site of a memorial commemorating the 1799 campaign of the Russian general Alexander Suvorov.

Between 1818-1831 AD the nearby St. Gotthard Pass was made accessible to stagecoaches. As the last resort before the pass, Andermatt flourished economically and became a popular spa town.

The opening, in 1881 AD, of the St. Gotthard railway tunnel, however, reverted its fortunes as the tunnel runs immediately beneath the town, connecting the Central Swiss town Göschenen with Airolo in Ticino. Some Andermattians, who worked on the tunnel were killed during its construction. A strike by the tunnel workers, furthermore, was put down through the use of military force killing a further four workers.

Since 1885 AD Andermatt has been converted into a garrison town of the Swiss Federal Army. Here the infrastructure for the High Command of the Swiss Federal Army in an event of war was built. Today it is location of a Training Centre of the Swiss army.

Plans to build a series of reservoirs in the Ursern Valley were voted down by the locals and a huge reservoir was built instead in the next valley called the Göscheneralp.

Several avalanches, in particular in the winter of 1951 AD and 1975 AD have caused havoc in some residential areas of Andermatt killing the inhabitants of the houses affected.

By the 1930s the town's income from tourism had seriously declined, and many of the Ursental's hotels were abandoned or changed usage. The Grand Hotel Bellevue, which was built by the aristocratic Müller family from neighbouring Hospental (who at one time or another owned many other hotels nearby including the Hotel Furkablick and Hotel Furka Passhöhe - as well as hotels in Flüelen, Alpnachstad, Herisau and Neuchâtel) was converted in the 1970s into apartments, but by 1990 had been abandoned and was demolished with explosives. By the turn of the 21st century, as an alternative to the expensive skiing resorts in the Grisons (Graubünden) at St Moritz and Gstaad, Andermatt's fortunes again revived and the town has seen considerable expansion and is currently undergoing much speculative building.

Demographics

Andermatt has a population (as of ) of . , 10.0% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has decreased at a rate of -8.8%. Most of the population () speaks German (95.2%), with Portuguese being second most common ( 1.0%) and Italian being third ( 0.9%). the gender distribution of the population was 50.8% male and 49.2% female.

The entire Swiss population is generally well educated. In Andermatt about 75.2% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either University or a Fachhochschule).

Andermatt has an unemployment rate of 0.9%. , there were 51 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 22 businesses involved in this sector. 90 people are employed in the secondary sector and there are 13 businesses in this sector. 599 people are employed in the tertiary sector, with 78 businesses in this sector.

The historical population is given in the following table:

year	population
1799	605
1850	677
1900	818
1950	1,231
1970	1,589
2000	1,282

Weather

Andermatt has an average of 147.3 days of rain per year and on average receives of precipitation. The wettest month is April during which time Andermatt receives an average of of precipitation. During this month there is precipitation for an average of 14 days. The month with the most days of precipitation is May, with an average of 14.1, but with only of precipitation. The driest month of the year is February with an average of of precipitation over 14 days.

References

External links

category:Municipalities of Uri category:Ski areas and resorts in Switzerland

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