Frick, Switzerland

Frick is a municipality in the district of Laufenburg in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland.

History

At the nearby ''Wittnauer Horn'', a prehistorical fortification was discovered, with object finds dated to the Late Bronze Age.
A Roman villa was located at the site of the later village in the 2nd century, and a small Roman fort was built in the early 4th century to protect the
military road from Vindonissa to Augusta Raurica (extended in AD 370). A Roman settlement developed in the vicinity of the fort, replaced by an Alemannic settlement during the 6th to 9th centuries. The Alemannic settlement had a fortified church, the foundations are still visible near the current village church.
The name of the village was taken from that of the encompassing region of Frickgau (mentioned as ''Frichgowe'' in 926), from a Vulgar Latin , in reference to the iron mine located here in the Roman era (a formation based on Latin ''ferrāria'' "iron mine" with the ''-icius'' suffix), whence early Romance ''*Ferrícia'', Old High German ''*Ferríkkea'', recorded as ''Fricho'' in the 11th century.

Starting in the High Middle Ages, Frickgau was owned by the Counts of Homberg-Thierstein.
Later, around 1230, it passed to the House of Habsburg, and was overseen by Habsburg ministeriales, known as the lords of Frick,
with Gipf, Upper Frick part of Oeschgen, forming the Frick bailiwick (''Vogtei'') (also called the ''Homburgeramt'').
The ''Homburger'' Vogt (reeve) was also chief administrator the Fricktal region.
The bailiwick was granted special privileges, including the right to elect their reeve, as well as the rights of lower jurisdiction.

The population of the bailiwick were divided into the upper layer of ''Vollbauern'' ("full farmers"), as well as in the ''Halbbauern'' ("half-farmers", i.e. smallholding farmers) and the ''Taun'' (tenants). The ''Vollbauern'' included the reeve's family, and were the most privileged. The tenants formed the lowest stratum, with no citizen rights, and represented the largest group numerically in the early modern period.

After the Act of Mediation in 1803, Frick and the rest of the modern Fricktal became part of the newly formed Canton of Aargau. In 1804 the municipalities of Frick and Gipf-Frick were formed. In 2007 a major dinosaur graveyard was discovered in Frick. Some of the bones, including a complete ''Plateosaurus'', are now on display in the ''Sauriermuseum''.

The Church of St. Peter and Paul were probably built as a private church for the Counts of Homberg during the High Middle Ages. In the Thirty Years War, the village was destroyed together with the church. In the mid-14th century the church came under the authority of Steinen Convent in Basel. Then, in 1492 it was granted to Teutonic Knights at Beuggen. The present baroque building is from 1716, and the reformed church is from 1910. The reformed parish comprises ten municipalities and the parish offices are in Frick and Gipf-Oberfrick. The catholic parish, consisting of Frick and Gipf-Oberfrick, has been a separate parish since 1953.

The municipal coat of arms, ''Argent a Wolf salient Gules'', was introduced in 1931 based on the historical coat of arms of the Habsburg ministeriales.
Before 1931, Frick had used the coat of arms of Fricktal, a green linden leaf in a white field.

In 2013 and 2014 it became the Swiss municipality with the highest crime rate, due to the several thousand offences registered in the context of the improper trading case involving ASE Investment, a company with official seat in Frick.

Geography

Frick has an area, , of . Of this area, or 46.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 29.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 24.2% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.6% is either rivers or lakes.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010 Over the past two decades (1979/85-2004/09) the amount of land that is settled has increased by and the agricultural land has decreased by .
accessed 27 October 2016

Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 4.3% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 9.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 5.6%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 2.8% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.9%. 27.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.4% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 26.3% is used for growing crops and 17.1% is pastures, while 2.7% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is in rivers and streams.

The municipality is located in the Laufenburg district, located at the meeting of the Bözberg, Staffelegg and Benken Jura passes. It is the central municipality in the Fricktal. It consists of the ''haufendorf'' village (an irregular, unplanned and quite closely packed village, built around a central square) of Frick.

Paleontology

During the upper Triassic period, about 210 million years ago, the region around Frick was a dry lowland with flat hills and small depressions. During the rainy season, the depressions filled with water and dinosaurs congregated around the ponds. When they died, their bodies were covered by the mud in the ponds and fossilized, creating rich fossil beds in Frick. The first ''Plateosaurus'' fossils were discovered in 1961 and further excavations during the following decades have discovered numerous fossils.Sauriermuseum Frick website
accessed 23 July 2013 In 2006, the only coelophysoidean (a small-sized flesh-eating dinosaur group) fossil in Switzerland, was found by an amateur paleontologist in Frick, in 2019 named ''Notatesseraeraptor''.

Demographics

Frick has a population () of . , 24.5% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 4 years (2010-2014) the population has changed at a rate of 7.03%. The birth rate in the municipality, in 2014, was 12.8, while the death rate was 7.4 per thousand residents. Most of the population () speaks German (85.1%), with Italian being second most common (3.6%) and Albanian being third (3.2%).Swiss Federal Statistical Office
accessed 30-April-2010

, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 20.7% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) are 63.1% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 16.1%. In 2015 there were 2,227 single residents, 2,434 people who were married or in a civil partnership, 250 widows or widowers and 373 divorced residents.

In 2014 there were 2,157 private households in Frick with an average household size of 2.38persons. Of the 780 inhabited buildings in the municipality, in 2000, about 64.0% were single family homes and 17.9% were multiple family buildings. Additionally, about 12.4% of the buildings were built before 1919, while 19.7% were built between 1991 and 2000.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Thema 09 - Bau- und Wohnungswesen
accessed 5 May 2016 In 2013 the rate of construction of new housing units per 1000 residents was 4.9. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.19%. about 41.9% of the total households were owner occupied, or in other words did not pay rent (though they may have a mortgage or a rent-to-own agreement).

, there were 148 homes with 1 or 2 persons in the household, 836 homes with 3 or 4 persons in the household, and 554 homes with 5 or more persons in the household. , there were 1,585 private households (homes and apartments) in the municipality, and an average of 2.5 persons per household. there were 610 single family homes (or 29.9% of the total) out of a total of 2,041 homes and apartments.Statistical Department of Canton Aargau
accessed 20 January 2010 There were a total of 24 empty apartments for a 1.2% vacancy rate. , the construction rate of new housing units was 12.9 new units per 1000 residents.

The historical population is given in the following chart:

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bar:1768 from:start till:495 text:"495"
bar:1850 from:start till:1112 text:"1,112"
bar:1860 from:start till:950 text:"950"
bar:1870 from:start till:935 text:"935"
bar:1880 from:start till:932 text:"932"
bar:1888 from:start till:874 text:"874"
bar:1900 from:start till:937 text:"937"
bar:1910 from:start till:1092 text:"1,092"
bar:1920 from:start till:1086 text:"1,086"
bar:1930 from:start till:1280 text:"1,280"
bar:1941 from:start till:1330 text:"1,330"
bar:1950 from:start till:1589 text:"1,589"
bar:1960 from:start till:2123 text:"2,123"
bar:1970 from:start till:3112 text:"3,112"
bar:1980 from:start till:3116 text:"3,116"
bar:1990 from:start till:3622 text:"3,622"
bar:2000 from:start till:4028 text:"4,028"
bar:2010 from:start till:4811 text:"4,811"
bar:2015 from:start till:5284 text:"5,284"

Heritage sites of national significance

The Catholic church of St. Peter and Paul as well as the charnel house are listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance. The village of Frick is designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.

Transportation

The municipality is located on the A3 motorway.

There is also a railway station served by the Swiss Federal Railways.

Economy

, Frick had an unemployment rate of 2.77%. , there were a total of 3,540 people employed in the municipality. Of these, a total of 72 people worked in 14 businesses in the primary economic sector. A majority (61.1%) of the primary sector employees worked in very small businesses (less than ten employees). The remainder worked in 1 small business with 28 employees. The secondary sector employed 1,106 workers in 51 separate businesses. In 2014 a total of 313 employees worked in 45 small companies (less than 50 employees). There were 5 mid sized businesses with 450 employees and 1 large business which employed 343 people. Finally, the tertiary sector provided 2,362 jobs in 362 businesses. There were 25 small businesses with a total of 735 employees and 3 mid sized businesses with a total of 399 employees.

In 2014 a total of 4.9% of the population received social assistance.

In 2015 there was one movie theater in the municipality with 177 seats.

there were 2,111 workers who lived in the municipality. Of these, 1,351 or about 64.0% of the residents worked outside Frick while 1,764 people commuted into the municipality for work. There were a total of 2,524 jobs (of at least 6 hours per week) in the municipality.Statistical Department of Canton Aargau-Bereich 11 Verkehr und Nachrichtenwesen
accessed 21 January 2010 Of the working population, 18% used public transportation to get to work, and 40.4% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 2,061 or 51.2% were Roman Catholic, while 931 or 23.1% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 21 individuals (or about 0.52% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic faith.Statistical Department of Canton Aargau - Aargauer Zahlen 2009
accessed 20 January 2010

Politics

In the 2015 federal election the most popular party was the SVP with 37.6% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the FDP (14.3%), the SP (12.9%) and the CVP (12.3%). In the federal election, a total of 1,506 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 45.7%.

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 33.1% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (19.9%), the SP (16%) and the FDP (12.9%).

Education

In Frick about 66.6% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a ''Fachhochschule''). Of the school age population (), there are 318 students attending primary school, there are 246 students attending secondary school, there are 402 students attending tertiary or university level schooling in the municipality.

Crime

In 2014 the crime rate, of the over 200 crimes listed in the Swiss Criminal Code (running from murder, robbery and assault to accepting bribes and election fraud), in Frick was 560 per thousand residents. This rate is over ten times greater than the cantonal rate and is seven and a half times greater than the average rate in the entire country. The rate has risen sharply in the last few years. In 2009 the rate was only 52.8, in 2010 it was 68, 2011 it was 72, it doubled in 2012 to 175, tripled in 2013 to 598 before dropping slightly in 2014. However, the majority of the crimes are probably financial crimes related to the 2013 scandal in which ASE Investment and Basel Cantonal Bank lost over 100 million CHF due to improper trading. Over 1,500 people were affected, leading to thousands of charges filed in Frick.

During the same period, the rate of drug crimes was 12.9 per thousand residents, which is a little higher than the national average but is more than double the cantonal rate (5.0 per thousand). The rate of violations of immigration, visa and work permit laws was 2.9 per thousand residents, which is about half the rate for the entire country.Statistical Atlas of Switzerland
accessed 5 April 2016

References

External links

*

(Dinosaur museum) of Frick

{{Authority control

Municipalities of Aargau
Cultural property of national significance in Aargau