Baar () 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' ...

in the canton of

Zug Zug (Standard German: , Alemannic German: ; ; ; ; )Named in the 16th century. is the largest List of cities in Switzerland, town and capital of the Swiss canton of Zug. Zug is renowned as a hub for some of the wealthiest individuals in the wor ...

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

Baar is first mentioned in 1045 as ''Barra''.

Geography

Baar has an area, , of . Of this area, 51% is used for agricultural purposes, while 25% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 22.8% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (0.8%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains). The municipality is located in the northern portion of the flood plain of the Lorze river. It was originally a linear village along the road between Lake Zug and

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 ...

. Since the 1960s it has grown rapidly. It consists of the village of Baar and the former

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 Allenwinden, Blickensdorf and Inwil, as well as the farm houses of Deinikon.

Demographics

Baar has a population (as of ) of . , 24.9% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years, the population has grown at a rate of 20.9%. Most of the population () speaks German (83.1%), with Italian being second most common (3.6%) and Serbo-Croatian being third (3.1%).Swiss Federal Statistical Office
accessed 22-Sep-2009 In the 2007 federal election, the most popular party was the SVP which received 31.2% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (22.9%), the FDP (18.2%) and the Green Party (17.7%). The historical population is given in the following table:

Education

In Baar about 72% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education 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 ...

''). Baar is home to the International School of Zug and Luzern, or ISZL. The ISZL is an independent co-educational, non-profit day school, from Pre-School to Grade 12 serving the international community of Central Switzerland. The municipality has a stadium, named ''Waldmannhalle'', with fixed seating for 1,200 people. This regular capacity can be extended to 3,000 for larger events.

Industry

From 1980 to 2006, it was also home to Lego Produktions AG Schweiz, a toy manufacturing plant owned by the Lego Group where some Lego parts, especially those for the

Lego Technic Lego Technic (stylized as ''LEGO Technic'') is a line of Lego interconnecting plastic rods and parts. The purpose of this series is to create advanced models of working vehicles and machines, compared to the simpler brick-building properties of ...

building sets, were manufactured. In 2006, the Lego Group announced a restructuring of the current production setup including the outsourcing of some of the production work to Flextronics, a

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

an electronics company. Lego Produktion AG in Baar was to be shut down and its operations moved to a plant now owned by Flextronics in

Kladno Kladno (; ) is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 70,000 inhabitants. It is the largest city in the region and has a rich industrial history. Administrative division Kladno consists of six municipal parts ...

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. Lego Technic parts would still be manufactured in the headquarters at Billund,

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

, which then had a workforce of 3,000. Baar serves as the official headquarters of

Glencore Glencore plc is an Anglo-Swiss Multinational corporation, multinational commodity trading and mining company with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, Baar, Switzerland. Glencore's oil and gas headquarters are in London, London, England as well a ...

, the global producer and trader of commodities, Sika AG, a chemical company with products for construction and automotive, and Veeam, an independent software vendor. Baar has an unemployment rate of 2.26%. , there were 333 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 94 businesses involved in this sector. 3,810 people are employed in the secondary sector and there are 278 businesses in this sector. 9,335 people are employed in the tertiary sector, with 1,415 businesses in this sector. Baar is also home to the Typo3 Association, which moderates the free

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

content management system A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content ( content management).''Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy''. Ann Rockley, Pamela Kostur, Steve Manning. New ...

Typo3.

Transportation

Baar railway station is a stop on the InterRegio service between

Zürich Hauptbahnhof Zürich Hauptbahnhof, often shortened to Zürich HB or just HB, and known in English as Zurich Main Station, is the largest railway station in Switzerland and one of the busiest in Europe. It is a major railway hub, with services to and from a ...

and Lucerne, serviced every full hour, as well as on the Zurich S-Bahn service S24 between

and Zürich Oerlikon. Several stops of the Stadtbahn Zug are in Baar. In the summer months it is possible to rent free bikes to bike around Baar. This can be done near the Rathaus.

Notable people

* Martin Schmid (1694 in Baar – 1772), Jesuit, missionary, musician and architect, worked mainly in Bolivia. * Max Huber (1919 in Baar – 1992), an influential

graphic designer A graphic designer is a practitioner who follows the discipline of graphic design, either within companies or organizations or independently. They are professionals in design and visual communication, with their primary focus on transforming ...

* Yvonne Gilli (born 1957 in Baar), physician and politician, Swiss National Council 2007-2015 ;Sport * Harry Froboess (1899–1985 in Baar), a German stunt diver and high diver * Kurt Schmid (born 1932 in Baar), rower, competed in the

1952 Events January–February * January 26 – Cairo Fire, Black Saturday in Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, ...

and

1960 Summer Olympics The 1960 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XVII Olympiad () and commonly known as Rome 1960 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 25 August to 11 September 1960 in Rome, Italy. Rome had previously been awar ...

* Pirmin Stierli (born 1947 in Baar), former Swiss football player, 187 club caps and 16 for

* Martin Andermatt (born 1961 in Baar), football manager who coaches

AC Bellinzona AC Bellinzona is a Swiss football club based in Bellinzona. It was founded in 1904, and won the Swiss Super League in 1948. After being folded in 2013 declaring bankruptcy, the team played the Ticino Group of 2.Liga, the sixth tier of the Sw ...

* Marcel Rohner (born 1964 in Baar), bobsledder, silver medallist in the

1998 Winter Olympics The 1998 Winter Olympics, officially known as the and commonly known as Nagano 1998 (), were a winter multi-sport event held from 7 to 22 February 1998, mainly in Nagano, Nagano, Nagano, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, with some events ...

* Brigitte McMahon (born 1967 in Baar), former triathlete, competed in the

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

and

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fro ...

* Patrick de Napoli (born 1975 in Baar), footballer of Italian descent, about 650 club caps * Moreno Merenda (born 1978 in Baar), former footballer, about 400 club caps, assistant manager of SC Cham * Kimi Räikkönen (born 1979), Formula-1 driver and former WRC-driver, lives in Baar. * Daniela Diaz (born 1982 in Baar), ice hockey coach and former player, coached the Swiss national team * Raphael Diaz (born 1986 in Baar), ice-hockey player with the

New York Rangers The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in New York City. The Rangers compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference (NHL), Eastern Conference. The team plays ...

* Sebastian Vettel (born 1987), Formula-1 driver lives in a house in Baar * Jannik Fischer (born 1990 in Baar), ice hockey defenceman

References

External links

Official website
* {{Authority control Cities in Switzerland Municipalities of the canton of Zug