Gossau 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 district of

Hinwil Hinwil is a municipality in the district of Hinwil in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland. History The village Hinwil from which the later municipality took its name is first mentioned in 745 as ''Hunichinwilari'', in a donation made by Beat ...

in the canton of

Zürich , neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon , twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco Zürich ...

in Switzerland. Besides the village of Gossau itself, the municipality includes the settlements of Bertschikon, Grüt, Herschmettlen and Ottikon.

History

Gossau is first mentioned in 859 as ''Cozzesouwo''.

Notable persons

* Jakob Falk (*15th or 16th century; † 5. September 1528 in Zurich), martyr of the Swiss Anabaptist movement * Ernst Brugger (*10. März 1914; † 20. Juni 1998), politician

Geography

Gossau has an area of . Of this area, 67% is used for agricultural purposes, while 14.2% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 17.9% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (0.8%) is non-productive (streams and non-productive vegetation). housing and buildings made up 12% of the total area, while transportation infrastructure made up the rest (5.9%). Of the total unproductive area, water (i.e. streams) made up 0.4% of the area. 11.7% of the total municipal area was undergoing some type of construction. The municipality is made up of five sections; Gossau (with the church settlement of Berg), Bertschikon, Grüt, Herschmettlen and Ottikon. It stretches through the uppermost section of the

Glatt valley The Glatt Valley (German: ''Glattal'' or ''Glatttal'') is a region and a river valley in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland. Geography The Glatt is a tributary to the Rhine in the Zürcher Unterland area of the canton of Zurich. It is long ...

. The topography is littered with

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...

moraines (known as ''Drumlins'') and basin of the former Gossauer Ried (Gossauer moor).

Politics

Mayor is Jörg Kündig ( FDP, 2014).

Demographics

Gossau has a population (as of ) of . , 10.5% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. the gender distribution of the population was 49.9% male and 50.1% female. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 12.4%. Most of the population () speaks German (92.4%), with Italian being second most common ( 2.0%) and Portuguese being third ( 1.2%). In the 2007 election the most popular party was the SVP which received 40.3% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CSP (14.8%), the SPS (14.4%) and the FDP (10.3%). The age distribution of the population () is children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 26.5% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 62.5% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 11%. The entire Swiss population is generally well educated. In Gossau about 82% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a '' Fachhochschule''). There are 3442 households in Gossau. Gossau has an unemployment rate of 1.38%. , there were 327 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 72 businesses involved in this sector. 922 people are employed in 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 ...

and there are 99 businesses in this sector. 1045 people are employed in 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 ...

, with 243 businesses in this sector.Swiss Federal Statistical Office
accessed 06-Aug-2009 50% of the working population were employed full-time, and 50% were employed part-time.
accessed 4 August 2009 there were 2458 Catholics and 4523 Protestants in Gossau. In the , religion was broken down into several smaller categories. From the 2000 census, 56.4% were some type of Protestant, with 51.4% belonging to the Swiss Reformed Church and 4.9% belonging to other Protestant churches. 25.5% of the population were Catholic. Of the rest of the population, 0% were Muslim, 2.9% belonged to another religion (not listed), 3.2% did not give a religion, and 11.8% were atheist or agnostic. Gossau

The historical population is given in the following table:

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gossau, Zurich Municipalities of the canton of Zürich