Arth is a village, a town, and a municipality in Schwyz District in the canton of Schwyz in

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

. The municipality consists of the villages Arth, Oberarth, and Goldau. The four settlements Rigi Kulm, Rigi First, Rigi Klösterli, and Rigi Staffel on the mountain Rigi to the west of Arth are also part of the municipality.

History

Arth is first mentioned in 1036 as ''Arta''. In 1353 it was mentioned as ''ze Arth''.

Geography

Arth has an area, , of . Of this area, 40.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while 46.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 8.5% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (4.3%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains). The municipality is situated on the southern shore of Lake Zug, and along the Gotthard route between Rigi and

Rossberg The Wildspitz is the highest summit of the Rossberg, a mountain of the Schwyzer Alps, located on the border between the Swiss cantons of Zug and Schwyz. Reaching a height of 1,580 metres above sea level, it is the highest summit in the canton o ...

. It consists of the villages of Arth Oberarth and Goldau as well as the hamlets of Klösterli and Kulm an der Rigi.

Demographics

Arth has a population (as of ) of . , 23.6% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 6.3%. Most of the population () speaks German (86.9%), with Albanian being second most common ( 3.9%) and Serbo-Croatian being third ( 3.2%).Swiss Federal Statistical Office
accessed 28-Aug-2009 the gender distribution of the population was 50.3% male and 49.7% female. The age distribution, , in Arth is; 2,555 people or 26.6% of the population is between 0 and 19. 2,870 people or 29.9% are 20 to 39, and 2,832 people or 29.5% are 40 to 64. The senior population distribution is 734 people or 7.7% are 65 to 74. There are 467 people or 4.9% who are 70 to 79 and 135 people or 1.41% of the population who are over 80. There is one person in Arth who is over 100 years old.Canton Schwyz Statistics
accessed 27 August 2009 there are 3,806 households, of which 1,156 households (or about 30.4%) contain only a single individual. 275 or about 7.2% are large households, with at least five members. In the 2007 election the most popular party was the SVP which received 38.8% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (20.8%), the FDP (20.4%) and the

SPS SPS may refer to: Law and government * Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures of the WTO * NATO Science for Peace and Security * Single Payment Scheme, an EU agricultural subsidy * The Standard Procurement System, fo ...

(16.3%). In Arth about 63.6% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a ''

Fachhochschule A ''Fachhochschule'' (; plural ''Fachhochschulen''), abbreviated FH, is a university of applied sciences (UAS), in other words a German tertiary education institution that provides professional education in many applied sciences and applied arts ...

''). Arth has an unemployment rate of 1.55%. , there were 329 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 129 businesses involved in this sector. 810 people are employed in the secondary sector and there are 88 businesses in this sector. 1868 people are employed in the tertiary sector, with 302 businesses in this sector. From the , 6,927 or 72.2% are Roman Catholic, while 939 or 9.8% belonged to the

Swiss Reformed Church The Protestant Church in Switzerland (PCS), (EKS); french: Église évangélique réformée de Suisse (EERS); it, Chiesa evangelica riformata in Svizzera (CERiS); rm, Baselgia evangelica refurmada da la Svizra (BRRS) formerly named Federation o ...

. Of the rest of the population, there are less than 5 individuals who belong to the

Christian Catholic The Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland is an Old Catholic denomination in Switzerland. This denomination is part of the Union of Utrecht (Old Catholic). Recent developments In 1871 the Zürich Catholic community planned to build a chu ...

faith, there are 273 individuals (or about 2.85% of the population) who belong to the Orthodox Church, and there are 7 individuals (or about 0.07% of the population) who belong to another Christian church. There are less than 5 individuals who are Jewish, and 717 (or about 7.47% of the population) who are

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

ic. There are 84 individuals (or about 0.88% of the population) who belong to another church (not listed on the census), 337 (or about 3.51% of the population) belong to no church, are

agnostic Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient ...

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

, and 302 individuals (or about 3.15% of the population) did not answer the question. The historical population is given in the following table:

Transport

The railway station at Goldau, named Arth-Goldau, is an important junction of the

Swiss Federal Railways Swiss Federal Railways (german: link=no, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen, ''SBB''; french: link=no, Chemins de fer fédéraux suisses, ''CFF''; it, Ferrovie federali svizzere, ''FFS'') is the national railway company of Switzerland. It is usuall ...

. The

Voralpen Express The ''Voralpen-Express'' (''VAE'') is a named train connecting small to medium-sized cities and villages in Central and Eastern Switzerland, carrying this name since 1992. It is operated by Südostbahn (SOB) and runs every hour between St. Gal ...

train connects here to

Luzern , neighboring_municipalities= Adligenswil, Ebikon, Emmen, Horw, Kriens, Malters, Meggen, Neuenkirch Lucerne ( , ; High Alemannic: ''Lozärn'') or Luzern ()Other languages: gsw, Lozärn, label=Lucerne German; it, Lucerna ; rm, Lucerna . is a ...

and St. Gallen. Meanwhile, trains to Bellinzona, Lugano and Italy, as well as trains to

Zug , neighboring_municipalities = Cham, Baar, Walchwil, Steinhausen, Unterägeri , twintowns = Fürstenfeld (Austria), Kalesija (Bosnia-Herzegowina) Zug (Standard German: , Alemannic German: ; french: Zoug it, Zugo r ...

and Zürich join here with trains heading toward Basel.

Notable people

Karl Jakob Weber Karl Jakob Weber (12 August 1712 – 1764) was a Swiss architect and engineer who was in charge of the first organized excavations at Herculaneum, Pompeii and Stabiae, under the patronage of Charles VII of Naples. At first a soldier and military ...

(1712 in Arth – 1764) a Swiss architect and engineer who was in charge of the first organized excavations at Herculaneum, Pompeii and Stabiae * Robbie Hunter (born 1977) a retired South African professional road racing cyclist who competed professionally between 1999 and 2013; now lives in Arth

Gallery

Arth_am_Zugersee.jpg, Arth Arth Kirche.JPG, Arth, Church CH-NB - Arth, von Nordwesten - Collection Gugelmann - GS-GUGE-ASCHMANN-C-1.tif, Arth about 1780

References

External links

* {{Authority control Municipalities of the canton of Schwyz Populated places on Lake Zug