Heiden is a village and 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 Appenzell Ausserrhoden Canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden ( ; ; ; ), in English sometimes Appenzell Outer Rhodes, is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. It is composed of twenty municipalities. The seat of the government and parliament is Herisau, a ...

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 ...

. Its Biedermeier village around the church square is listed as a heritage site of national significance.

History

Heiden is first mentioned in 1461 as ''guot genant Haiden''. Heiden, Lutzenberg, and Wolfhalden originally were parts of a single municipality named the Kurzenberg. Around 1650, Heiden and Wolfhalden could not agree about control over the local church. This led to the creation of a separate church in each village in 1652, making them independent. In 1658 the Kurzenberg was split into the three separate municipalities in defiance of the canton government. Their borders were officially established in 1666–67. The founder of the

Red Cross The organized International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 16million volunteering, volunteers, members, and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ...

Henry Dunant Henry Dunant (born Jean-Henri Dunant; 8 May 182830 October 1910), also known as Henri Dunant, was a Swiss humanitarian, businessman, social activist, and co-founder of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, Red Cross. His humanit ...

, spent his last years in Heiden. The former president of the ICRC, Jakob Kellenberger, was also born in Heiden.

Geography

Heiden has an area, , of . Of this area, 52.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while 30.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 16.8% is settled (buildings or roads), and the remainder (0.3%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciersm or mountains). The municipality is located in the former District of Vorderland on the Kurzenberg. It consists of the village of Heiden and several

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 ...

near the village.

Demographics

The historical population is given in the following table: Heiden had a population () of 4,052, of which about 18.3% were foreign nationals.Brief Statistics for the half-canton
accessed 15 September 2009 Over the previous 10 years, the population had decreased at a rate of -4.2%. Most of the population () spoke German (88.7%), with Croatian being second most common (5.9%), and Italian being third most common (1.1%).
accessed 15-Sep-2009 , the gender distribution of the population was 48.5% male, and 51.5% female. The age distribution, , in Heiden was; 311 people or 7.7% of the population were between 0–6 years old. 512 people or 12.6% were 6–15, and 219 people or 5.4% were 16–19. Of the adult population, 168 people or 4.1% of the population were between 20 and 24 years old. 1,179 people or 29.0% were 25–44, and 966 people or 23.8% were 45–64. The senior population distribution was 491 people or 12.1% of the population were between 65 and 79 years old, and 217 people or 5.3% were over 80.Appenzell Outer Rhodes website
accessed 15 September 2009 In the 2007 federal election the FDP received 65% of the vote. In Heiden about 68.3% 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 ...

''). Heiden has an unemployment rate of 1.61%. , there were 93 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 37 businesses involved in this sector. 708 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 41 businesses in this sector. 1,428 people were 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 189 businesses in this sector.

Transportation

An hourly

rack railway A rack railway (also rack-and-pinion railway, cog railway, or cogwheel railway) is a steep grade railway with a toothed rack rail, usually between the running rails. The trains are fitted with one or more cog wheels or pinions that mesh with ...

, the S25 service operated by Appenzell Railways for St. Gallen S-Bahn, leads from Heiden to the port of Rorschach () on

Lake Constance Lake Constance (, ) refers to three bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constance (''Obersee''), Lower Lake Constance (''Untersee''), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein (). These ...

, below. It uses the Rorschach-Heiden railway line. Two stations exist in the municipality, and . Heiden is also connected by several frequent Swiss PostAuto lines.

Notable residents

(1828–1910), co-founder of the

, received the first Nobel Peace Prize. * Heinrich Frenkel (1860–1931), neurologist * Sonja Nef (born 1972), Olympic skier * Carlo Schmid-Sutter (born 1950), politician *

Hugo Thiemann Hugo Thiemann (2 February 1917 – 10 June 2012) was a Swiss R&D manager and visionary. He was a founding member of the ''Club of Rome''. Life Hugo Ernst Thiemann was born in Heiden, Switzerland, then educated in nearby St. Gallen, Switzerlan ...

(1917–2012), research and development manager *

Ruth Westheimer Karola Ruth Westheimer (née Siegel; June 4, 1928 – July 12, 2024), better known as Dr. Ruth, was a German and American sex therapist and talk show host. Westheimer was born in Germany to a Jewish family. As the Nazis came to power, her paren ...

(born Karola Siegel, 1928–2024; known as "Dr. Ruth"), German-American sex therapist, talk show host, author, professor,

Holocaust survivor Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, its collaborators before and during World War II ...

, and former

Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...

sniper.

References

{{Authority control Cultural property of national significance in Appenzell Ausserrhoden Municipalities of Appenzell Ausserrhoden