Santa Maria Val Müstair ( rm, Soncha Maria) is a village in the

Val Müstair Val Müstair (german: Münstertal) is a municipality in the Engiadina Bassa/Val Müstair Region in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. It was formed on 1 January 2009 through the merger of Tschierv, Fuldera, Lü, Valchava, Santa Maria Val M� ...

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 district of

Inn Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accommo ...

in the

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri *Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internati ...

canton Canton may refer to: Administrative division terminology * Canton (administrative division), territorial/administrative division in some countries, notably Switzerland * Township (Canada), known as ''canton'' in Canadian French Arts and ent ...

of Graubünden. In 2009 Santa Maria Val Müstair merged with Lü,

Müstair Müstair is a village in the Val Müstair municipality in the district of Inn in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. In 2009 Müstair merged with Fuldera, Lü, Switzerland, Santa Maria Val Müstair, Tschierv and Valchava to form Val Müstair.

Fuldera Fuldera is a village in the Val Müstair municipality in the district of Inn in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. In 2009 Fuldera merged with Lü, Müstair, Santa Maria Val Müstair, Tschierv and Valchava to form the municipality of Val Müst ...

Tschierv Tschierv is a village in the Val Müstair municipality in the district of Inn in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. In 2009 Tschierv merged with Fuldera, Lü, Müstair, Santa Maria Val Müstair and Valchava to form the municipality of Val M ...

and

Valchava Valchava is a village in the Val Müstair (''Müstair valley'') of the canton of Graubünden (Grisons), Switzerland. It was an independent municipality in the district of Inn until on 1 January 2009 Valchava merged with Fuldera, Lü, Müstair, ...

to form the municipality of Val Müstair.Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz
published by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 23 September 2009

History

Sta. Maria Val Müstair is first mentioned in 1167–70 as ''die Kapelle Sancte Mariae in Silvaplana''.

Geography

Sta. Maria Val Müstair has an area, , of . Of this area, 31.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while 24.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 1.2% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (42.1%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains). The village is located in the Val Müstair sub-district (now Val Müstair municipality) of the Inn district. It is along the Umbrail pass road. It consists of the cross-shaped village of Sta. Maria Val Müstair and the alpine settlements of Craistas, Büglios and Pütschai as well as the

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depi ...

of Sielva which includes the hospital. Until 1995 Sta. Maria Val Müstair was known as Santa Maria im Münstertal.

Population

Sta. Maria Val Müstair has a population () of 339, of which 8.8% are foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has decreased at a rate of −14.8%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office
accessed 13 October 2009 , the gender distribution of the population was 54.2% male and 45.8% female.Graubunden in Numbers
accessed 21 September 2009 The age distribution, , in Sta. Maria Val Müstair is; 7 children or 4.5% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old. 6 teenagers or 3.9% are 10 to 14, and 10 teenagers or 6.5% are 15 to 19. Of the adult population, 13 people or 8.4% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 15 people or 9.7% are 30 to 39, 25 people or 16.2% are 40 to 49, and 26 people or 16.9% are 50 to 59. The senior population distribution is 27 people or 17.5% of the population are between 60 and 69 years old, 19 people or 12.3% are 70 to 79, there are 4 people or 2.6% who are 80 to 89, and there are 2 people or 1.3% who are 90 to 99.Graubunden Population Statistics
accessed 21 September 2009 In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 43.7% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SPS (23.3%), the FDP (19.6%) and the CVP (11.8%). The entire Swiss population is generally well educated. In Sta. Maria Val Müstair about 63.7% of the population (between age 25–64) have completed either non-mandatory

upper secondary education Secondary education or post-primary education covers two phases on the International Standard Classification of Education scale. Level 2 or lower secondary education (less commonly junior secondary education) is considered the second and final ph ...

or additional higher education (either University or a ''

Fachhochschule A ''Fachhochschule'' (; plural ''Fachhochschulen''), abbreviated FH, is a university of applied sciences (UAS), in other words a German tertiary education institution that provides professional education in many applied sciences and applied ar ...

''). Sta. Maria Val Müstair has an unemployment rate of 1.45%. , there were 32 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 10 businesses involved in this sector. 49 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 constructio ...

and there are 10 businesses in this sector. 192 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 secon ...

, with 32 businesses in this sector. The historical population is given in the following table:

Languages

Most of the population () speaks

Rhaeto-Romance Rhaeto-Romance, Rheto-Romance, or Rhaetian, is a purported subfamily of the Romance languages that is spoken in south-eastern Switzerland and north-eastern Italy. The name "Rhaeto-Romance" refers to the former Roman province of Raetia. The qu ...

(69.7%), with German being second most common (25.4%) and Portuguese being third ( 2.4%). Most of the population speaks the Jauer dialect of Romansh, though even in the 19th Century there was a German-speaking minority. In 1880 about 81% of the population spoke Romansh as their first language, in 1910 it was 63%, in 1941 it was 74% and in 1970 it had grown to 81%.

Climate

Sta. Maria in Val Müstair features a warm summer

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freez ...

(Dfb) according to the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, nota ...

. The town receives on average 95.6 days of rain per year totalling of

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hai ...

. This relatively low level of precipitation is primarily due to its central location inside the Alps. The wettest month is August during which time Sta. Maria receives on average of precipitation. During this month there is precipitation for an average of 11.0 days. The driest month of the year is February with an average of of precipitation over 5.1 days. The wettest month is therefore nearly 5 times wetter than the driest one, making Sta. Maria one of the places with the largest seasonal precipitation variety in all of Switzerland, only behind

Samedan Samedan (, ) is a town and municipality in the Maloja Region in the Swiss canton of Grisons. It is served by Samedan railway station on the Rhaetian Railway network and by the Samedan Airport. History Samedan is first mentioned in 1139 as ...

in the neighbouring

Engadin The Engadin or Engadine ( rm, ;This is the name in the two Romansh idioms that are spoken in the Engadin, Vallader and Puter, as well as in Sursilvan and Rumantsch Grischun. In Surmiran, the name is ''Nagiadegna'', and in Sutsilvan, it i ...

valley.

Personalities

Dario Cologna Dario Cologna (born 11 March 1986) is a Swiss cross-country skier. He has four overall World Cup victories, four Olympic gold medals, one World Championships gold medal and four Tour de Ski victories in his career. On 3 November 2021, he announ ...

, cross-country skier

References

{{Authority control Val Müstair Former municipalities of Graubünden