Altendorf is a

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

March District March District is a district in Canton of Schwyz, Switzerland. The coat of arms of the district is ''gules, an annulet sable'' — a black ring on a red background. It has a population of (as of ). The current ''Bezirksammann'' of the district is ...

in the

canton of Schwyz The canton of Schwyz ( ; ; ; ) is a Cantons of Switzerland, canton in central Switzerland between the Swiss Alps, Alps in the south, Lake Lucerne to the west and Lake Zürich in the north, centred on and named after the town of Schwyz. It is one ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

History

Altendorf is first mentioned in 972 as ''Rahprehteswilare''. In 1932, construction started on the '' Etzelwerk'', a

hydro-electric power station Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

to generate power for the

Swiss Federal Railways Swiss Federal Railways (, SBB; , CFF; , FFS) is the national railway company of Switzerland. The company was founded in 1902 and is headquartered in Bern. It used to be a State-owned enterprise, government institution, but since 1999 it has be ...

. By 1937, the power station was complete and in operation. The plant continues in use today, and takes its water supply from the

Sihlsee reservoir __NOTOC__ The Sihlsee (in English sometimes called ''Lake Sihl'') is an artificial lake in the Swiss canton of Schwyz, near the town of Einsiedeln. The lake was created by damming the river Sihl and flooding a section of the upper Sihl Valley. Th ...

that lies to the south-west.

Geography

Altendorf has an area, , of . Of this area, 52.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while 37.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 9.4% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (0.4%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains). The municipality is located on the ''Obersee'' section of

Lake Zurich Lake Zurich (, ; ) is a lake in Switzerland, extending southeast of the city of Zurich. Depending on the context, Lake Zurich or can be used to describe the lake as a whole, or just that part of the lake downstream of the Hurden peninsula and ...

. It is along the rail line Pfäffikon- Lachen and on the A3 motorway. It consists of the village of Altendorf and the

hamlets A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. This is often simply an informal description of a smaller settlement or possibly a subdivision or satellite entity to a larger settlement. Sometimes a hamlet is defined f ...

of Seestatt along the lake and the hamlets of Muschelberg, Mittlisberg, Schlipf and Vorderberg in the pre-alpine hills as well as a suburb of Lachen, the hamlet of Steinegg.

Demographics

Altendorf has a population (as of ) of . , 16.8% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 32.4%. Most of the population () speaks German (91.1%), with Italian being second most common ( 1.4%) and Albanian being third ( 1.3%).Swiss Federal Statistical Office
accessed 02-Sep-2009 the gender distribution of the population was 51.1% male and 48.9% female. The age distribution, , in Altendorf is; 1,196 people or 25.8% of the population is between 0 and 19. 1,372 people or 29.6% are 20 to 39, and 1,597 people or 34.4% are 40 to 64. The senior population distribution is 286 people or 6.2% are 65 to 74. There are 141 people or 3.0% who are 70 to 79 and 46 people or 0.99% of the population who are over 80. There is one person in Altendorf who is over 100 years old.Canton Schwyz Statistics
accessed 27 August 2009 there are 1,786 households, of which 471 households (or about 26.4%) contain only a single individual. 147 or about 8.2% are large households, with at least five members. In the 2007 election the most popular party was the SVP which received 47.1% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (17.8%), the FDP (16.7%) and the SPS (13.9%). In Altendorf about 71.9% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory

upper secondary education Secondary education is the education level following primary education and preceding tertiary education. Level 2 or ''lower secondary education'' (less commonly ''junior secondary education'') is considered the second and final phase of basic e ...

or additional higher education (either University or a ''

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

''). Altendorf has an unemployment rate of 1.76%. , there were 227 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 83 businesses involved in this sector. 857 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 105 businesses in this sector. 1,238 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 ...

, with 211 businesses in this sector. From the , 3,108 or 67.0% are

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

, while 810 or 17.5% belonged to the

Swiss Reformed Church The Protestant Church in Switzerland (PCS), formerly named Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches until 31 December 2019, is a federation of 25 member churches – 24 cantonal churches and the Evangelical-Methodist Church of Switzerland. The P ...

. Of the rest of the population, there are less than 5 individuals who belong to the Christian Catholic faith, there are 87 individuals (or about 1.88% of the population) who belong to the Orthodox Church, and there are 6 individuals (or about 0.13% of the population) who belong to another Christian church. There are less than 5 individuals who are

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

, and 159 (or about 3.43% of the population) who are

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

ic. There are 32 individuals (or about 0.69% of the population) who belong to another church (not listed on the census), 294 (or about 6.34% of the population) belong to no church, are

agnostic Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is either unknowable in principle or unknown in fact. (page 56 in 1967 edition) It can also mean an apathy towards such religious belief and refer to ...

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 138 individuals (or about 2.98% of the population) did not answer the question. The historical population is given in the following table:

Transportation

Altendorf railway station is a stop on the

Zurich S-Bahn The Zurich S-Bahn () system is a network of rail lines that has been incrementally expanded to cover the ZVV area, which comprises the entire canton of Zurich and portions of neighbouring cantons (Aargau, Glarus, Schaffhausen, Schwyz, ...

service S2, between

Zurich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

and

Ziegelbrücke Ziegelbrücke is a village situated on both sides of the Linth Channel in Switzerland. Ziegelbrücke is shared by the Municipalities of Switzerland, municipalities of Niederurnen in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Glarus (canton), Glarus an ...

References

Notes

External links

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