Glatt () is the name of a lesser

affluent Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an I ...

to the

High Rhine The High Rhine (german: Hochrhein) is the name used for the part of the Rhine that flows westbound from Lake Constance to Basel. The High Rhine begins at the outflow of the Rhine from the Untersee in Stein am Rhein and turns into the Upper Rhine ...

in the Unterland of the canton of Zurich, Switzerland. It is long and flows out from the Greifensee through 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 ...

, discharging into the Rhine by

Glattfelden Glattfelden is a municipality in the district of Bülach in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland, and belongs to the Glatt Valley (German: ''Glattal''). History Glattfelden is first mentioned in 1130 as ''Glatevelden''. Geography Glattfelden ...

. Whereas the upper reaches are only gently inclined, the stream gets steeper beneath, forming banks of

bed load The term bed load or bedload describes particles in a flowing fluid (usually water) that are transported along the stream bed. Bed load is complementary to suspended load and wash load. Bed load moves by rolling, sliding, and/or saltating (h ...

. The earliest mention of the Glatt ''(fluvii, qui dicitur glat)'' dates to 1034. The hydronym reflects the (feminine) OHG adjective ''glat'', meaning either "bright, clear" or "plane, smooth".Gabrielle Schmid/Andres Kristol, ''Niederglatt ZH (Dielsdorf)'' in: ''Dictionnaire toponymique des communes suisses – Lexikon der schweizerischen Gemeindenamen – Dizionario toponomastico dei comuni svizzeri (DTS, LSG)'', Centre de dialectologie, Université de Neuchâtel, Verlag Huber, Frauenfeld/Stuttgart/Wien 2005, and Éditions Payot, Lausanne 2005, , p. 646. Since the 15th century, the Glatt had been subject to the sovereignty of the

city of Zurich A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

, the council of which assigned the custody over the river to two reeves ''(Glatt

vögte During the Middle Ages, an (sometimes given as modern English: advocate; German: ; French: ) was an office-holder who was legally delegated to perform some of the secular responsibilities of a major feudal lord, or for an institution such as ...

)'' in the 16th century. After a first attempt to regulate the stream in 1593 and a rudimentary project in the early 19th century, the largest reshapings took place during the time from 1878 to 1895. In 1936, another straightening was carried out as a preliminary work to the construction of the

Zurich Airport Zürich Airport (), french: Aéroport de Zurich, it, Aeroporto di Zurigo, rm, Eroport da Turitg is the largest international airport of Switzerland and the principal hub of Swiss International Air Lines. It serves Zürich, Switzerland's la ...

as well as to

land improvement Land development is the alteration of landscape in any number of ways such as: * Changing landforms from a natural or semi-natural state for a purpose such as agriculture or housing * Subdividing real estate into lots, typically for the purpos ...

and future overbuilding. Due to the last regulation works in 1975 between Niederglatt and the Glatt's confluence to the Rhine, the hydroelectric

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many ...

s built in the late 19th century at the lower course of the stream disappeared. The Glatt was formerly abounding with fish. Owing to the accelerated growth of Zurich's agglomeration during the 20th century and the insufficiency of the purification plants built in the 1960s, it has been strongly polluted; from 1994 to 2002, the sewage system was restructured by driving a tunnel between the Glatt Valley and the

Limmat Valley The Limmat Valley (German: ''Limmattal'') is a river valley and a region in the cantons of Zürich and Aargau in Switzerland. Geography The Limmat () is a long river located in the cantons of Zürich (ZH) and Aargau (AG). It is the co ...

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{{Authority control Rivers of Switzerland Rivers of the canton of Zürich