Falera is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

in the

Surselva Region Surselva Region is one of the eleven administrative districts in the canton of Graubünden in Switzerland. It was created on 1 January 2017 as part of a reorganization of the canton.Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

canton of Graubünden. Falera is a part of the ''Alpenarena'' along with the towns of

Flims Flims ( rm, Flem) is a municipality in the Imboden Region in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. The town of Flims is dominated by the Flimserstein which one can see from almost anywhere in the area. Flims consists of the village of Flims (called ...

and

Laax Laax ( rm, Lags) is a municipality in the Surselva Region in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. History Laax is first mentioned c. 1290–98 as ''Lags''. Geography Laax has an area, , of . Of this area, 35.8% is used for agricultural purp ...

and is the most secluded of the three.

History

Falera is a town of rich culture and history. In 1800 B.C., a settlement was started on the Mutta. This came during the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

and was very significant in the early development of what today is Switzerland. The village is first mentioned in 765 as ''Falariae''. While the first actual mention of a church in Falera was in 840-841. However, the current church was not built until 1491. The church was built on the foot of the Mutta and was named after

St. Remigius Remigius (french: Remi or ; – January 13, 533), was the Bishop of Reims and "Apostle of the Franks". On 25 December 496, he baptised Clovis I, King of the Franks. The baptism, leading to about 3000 additional converts, was an important eve ...

. Around the church are stone pillars (

megalith A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...

s or

menhir A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. They can be foun ...

s), arranged geometrically, that are said to date around 1500 B.C. Later, in the year 1903, another church was built. This church was built directly in the village and was named the Herz-Jesu-Kirche or "Heart of Jesus Church" . It, along with the original Falera church, are still standing today and the main attractions of Falera.

Falera today

Today, Falera is mostly overshadowed by the other two villages of the Alpenarena: Laax and

. Most people that have apartments in Falera do not live there year-round, but rather use them as vacation homes and weekend trips. The main language spoken is Romansh, a

Romance language The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European languages, I ...

that is said to have descended from

vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve ...

. The Sternwarte Mirasteilas, an astronomical observatory, was established by

José De Queiroz José De Queiroz (born 9 August 1954) is a Portuguese-born, Swiss amateur astronomer and discoverer of minor planets, as well as a restaurant manager in Falera in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. Career Queiroz was born in Lisbon. In 1956 ...

in 2006.

Geography

Falera has an area, (as of the 2004/09 survey) of . Of this area, about 60.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while 20.0% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 2.6% is settled (buildings or roads) and 17.3% is unproductive land. In the 2004/09 survey a total of or about 1.7% of the total area was covered with buildings, an increase of over the 1984/85 amount. Of the agricultural land, is fields and grasslands and consists of alpine grazing areas. Since 1984/85 the amount of agricultural land has decreased by . Over the same time period the amount of forested land has increased by . Rivers and lakes cover in the municipality. Before 2017, the municipality was located in the Ilanz sub-district of the Surselva district, after 2017 it became part of the Surselva Region. It is located on a terrace above the left bank of the

Vorderrhein The Vorderrhein (German; English: ''Anterior Rhine''; Sursilvan: ; Sutsilvan: ''Ragn Anteriur''; Rumantsch Grischun, Vallader, and Puter: ''Rain Anteriur''; Surmiran: ''Ragn anteriour'') is one of the two sources of the Rhine. Its catchment area ...

river at an elevation of . Until 1969 Falera was known as Fellers.Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz
published by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 23 September 2009

Demographics

Falera has a population () of . , 13.6% of the population are resident foreign nationals. In 2015 a small minority (63 or 10.3% of the population) was born in Portugal. Over the last 7 years (2010-2017) the population has changed at a rate of 7.60%. The

birth rate The birth rate for a given period is the total number of live human births per 1,000 population divided by the length of the period in years. The number of live births is normally taken from a universal registration system for births; populati ...

in the municipality, in 2017, was 11.4, while the

death rate Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of de ...

was 3.2 per thousand residents. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 18.5% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) are 54.7% of the population and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 26.8%. In 2015 there were 244 single residents, 326 people who were married or in a civil partnership, 18 widows or widowers and 26 divorced residents. In 2017 there were 268 private households in Falera with an average household size of 2.32 persons. In 2015 about 23.7% of all buildings in the municipality were single family homes, which is much less than the percentage in the canton (49.4%) and much less than the percentage nationally (57.4%). Of the 321 inhabited buildings in the municipality, in 2000, about 30.5% were single family homes and 59.8% were multiple family buildings. Additionally, about 17.1% of the buildings were built before 1919, while 17.8% were built between 1991 and 2000.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Thema 09 - Bau- und Wohnungswesen
accessed 5 May 2016 In 2016 the rate of construction of new housing units per 1000 residents was 11.4. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.04%. The historical population is given in the following chart: Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8) ImageSize = width: auto height:200 barincrement:45 PlotArea = top:20 left:40 bottom:20 right:35 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:700 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:100 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:20 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width: 35 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1850 from:start till:415 text:"415" bar:1860 from:start till:390 text:"390" bar:1870 from:start till:370 text:"370" bar:1880 from:start till:337 text:"337" bar:1888 from:start till:329 text:"329" bar:1900 from:start till:322 text:"322" bar:1910 from:start till:336 text:"336" bar:1920 from:start till:300 text:"300" bar:1930 from:start till:298 text:"298" bar:1941 from:start till:372 text:"372" bar:1950 from:start till:370 text:"370" bar:1960 from:start till:355 text:"355" bar:1970 from:start till:309 text:"309" bar:1980 from:start till:383 text:"383" bar:1990 from:start till:404 text:"404" bar:2000 from:start till:504 text:"504" bar:2010 from:start till:579 text:"579" bar:2017 from:start till:623 text:"623"

Economy

Falera is classed as a semitourist community. , there were a total of 173 people employed in the municipality. Of these, a total of 31 people worked in 11 businesses in the primary economic sector. The

secondary sector In macroeconomics, the secondary sector of the economy is an economic sector in the three-sector theory that describes the role of manufacturing. It encompasses industries that produce a finished, usable product or are involved in constructi ...

employed 64 workers, of which 54 people worked for one business. Finally, the

tertiary sector The tertiary sector of the economy, generally known as the service sector, is the third of the three economic sectors in the three-sector model (also known as the economic cycle). The others are the primary sector (raw materials) and the second ...

provided 78 jobs in 22 businesses. In 2017 a total of 11.4% of the population received social assistance. In 2011 the unemployment rate in the municipality was 1.3%. In 2015 the average cantonal, municipal and church tax rate in the municipality for a couple with two children making was 3.2% while the rate for a single person making was 13.8%. The canton has an average tax rate for those making and an average rate for those making . In 2013 the average income in the municipality per tax payer was and the per person average was , which is less than the cantonal average of but greater than the per person amount of . It is also less than the national per tax payer average of but greater than the per person average of .

Politics

In the 2019 federal election the most popular party was the CVP with 45.4% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (29.3%), the GLP (7.8%) and the FDP (7.2%). In the federal election, a total of 260 votes were cast, and the

voter turnout In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This can be the percentage of registered voters, eligible voters, or all voting-age people. According to Stanford Unive ...

was 57.3%.

Languages

Most of the population () speaks Romansh (67.5%), with German being second most common (28.8%) and Italian being third (2.0%).Swiss Federal Statistical Office
accessed 4 October 2011 Until the late 20th Century, the entire population spoke the Romansh dialect of Surselvisch. In 1880 about 99% spoke Romansh as a first language, while in 1941 it was 97% and in 2000 it had decreased to 67%. In 1990 about 90% of the population understood Romansh and in 2000 it was 78%. End of 2013, 381 persons, 64.4% are of Romansh mother tongue, 145 persons, 24.5% are of German mother tongue and 66 persons, 11.1% indicate other languages as mother tongue.

Religion

From the 84% are

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

, while 10% 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 ...

and 1% that are Orthodox. About 0.6% did not answer the question.

Heritage sites of national significance

The ''Church of S. Rumetg/St. Remigius'' and the ''Muota/Mutta'' and ''Planezzas'' (prehistoric settlements and

sites) are listed as Swiss heritage sites of national significance. Image:Remigius_Winter.jpg, St. Remigius Image:Menhir_Winter.jpg, Menhir Image:Remigius.jpg, Menhirs near St. Remigius Image:Mutta-Remigius.jpg, The ''Mutta'' and St. Remigius File:Megalithiker.jpg,

Petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

from the megalith site File:Remigius Falera.jpg,

Menhir A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. They can be foun ...

or standing stone (Megalith) with the Church of San Remigius File:Menhire.jpg, Standing stone near Falera

References

External links

Falera homepageFlims Laax Falera
{{Authority control Ski areas and resorts in Switzerland Cultural property of national significance in Graubünden