Hofen, Switzerland


Hofen was a municipality in the canton of Schaffhausen in Switzerland. On 1 January 2009 Hofen merged with Altdorf, Bibern, Opfertshofen and Thayngen to form the municipality of Thayngen.

History

Hofen is first mentioned in 1258 as Hofen.

Coat of arms

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a Lion rampant Or langued of the first and armed Argent holding in dexter a Fleur-de-lis of the last.
The coat of arms comes from the mayor of Schaffhausen and resident of Hofen, Tobias Holländer. His family came from Holland though he was born in Basel. He became mayor in 1683 and on 18 January 1684 bought land in Hofen and built his manor house, the Holländer's house. Holländer was ambitious and a follower of King Louis XIV of France and he created a personal army in the model of Louis' army. His coat of arms represented his origin and ambition. The lion represents the lion of the Dutch Republic while the fleur-de-lis represents Louis XIV. When he built barracks for his private army in Hofen, he decorated them with his personal coat of arms, which is still visible. His coat of arms became the village coat of arms.

Geography

Hofen has an area,, of. Of this area, 73.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while 8.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 16.3% is settled and the remainder is non-productive.
The village is located in the Reiat district in the Biber valley. It is on the border with Baden-Württemberg in Germany, and half way between Opfertshofen, Switzerland and Büsslingen, Germany, on the Swiss Hauptstrasse from Thayngen to Büsslingen.

Demographics

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 52.2% of the vote. The next two most popular parties were the SP, and the FDP.
The historical population is given in the following table:
yearpopulation
1850123
1900126
1950140
1980108
2000127