Zermatt


Zermatt is a municipality in the district of Visp in the German-speaking section of the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It has a population of about 5,800 inhabitants and is classified as a town by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office.
It lies at the upper end of Mattertal at an elevation of, at the foot of Switzerland's highest peaks. It lies about from the over high Theodul Pass bordering Italy.
Zermatt is famed as a mountaineering and ski resort of the Swiss Alps. Until the mid-19th century, it was predominantly an agricultural community; the first and tragic ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865 was followed by a rush on the mountains surrounding the village, leading to the construction of many tourist facilities. The year-round population is, though there may be several times as many tourists in Zermatt at any one time. Much of the local economy is based on tourism, with about half of the jobs in town in hotels or restaurants and just under half of all apartments are vacation apartments. Just over one-third of the permanent population was born in the town, while another third moved to Zermatt from outside Switzerland.
In 1959, Zermatt was served as a filming location for Walt Disney's Third Man on the Mountain.

Etymology

The name of Zermatt, as well as that of the Matterhorn itself, derives from the alpine meadows, or matten, in the valley. The name appeared first as Zur Matte and became later Zermatt. It does not appear until 1495 on a map or 1546 in a text, but may have been employed long before.
Praborno or Prato Borno are the older names of Zermatt; they appear in the ancient maps as early as the thirteenth century. The Romand-speaking people from the Aosta Valley and from the Romand-speaking part of canton Wallis used this name until about 1860 in the form of Praborne, or Praborgne. The reason of this change from Praborno to Zermatt is attributed to the gradual replacement of the Romance-speaking people by German-speaking colony.

Geography

The town of Zermatt lies at the southern end of the Matter Valley, which is one of the lateral branches of the grand Valley of the Rhône. Zermatt is almost completely surrounded by the high mountains of the Pennine Alps including Monte Rosa, Switzerland's highest peak at above sea level. It is followed by the Dom, Liskamm, Weisshorn and the Matterhorn. Most of the Alpine four-thousanders are located around Zermatt or in the neighbouring valleys.
Zermatt is traversed by the main river of the valley: the Matter Vispa, which rises at the glaciers at the feet of the highest peaks: the Gorner Glacier on the east side near Monte Rosa and the Zmutt Glacier on the west side between Dent d'Hérens and Dent Blanche.
The town of Zermatt, while dense, is geographically small. There are three main streets which run along the banks of the Matter Vispa, and numerous cross-streets, especially around the station and the church which forms the centre of Zermatt. In general anything is at most a thirty-minute walk away. There are several "suburbs" within Zermatt. Winkelmatten/Moos, which was once a separate hamlet, lies on a hill on the southern side. Steinmatten is located on the eastern bank of the main river.
Many hamlets are located in the valleys above Zermatt, however they are not usually inhabited all year round. Zum See lies south of Zermatt on the west bank of the Gorner gorge, near Furi where a cable car station is located. On the side of Zmutt valley lies the hamlet of Zmutt, north of the creek Zmuttbach. Findeln is located in the eastern valley above the creek Findelbach. It lies below the Sunnegga station. Located near a train station of the Gornergratbahn, Riffelalp is one of the highest hamlets with a chapel.
Zermatt had an area, of. Of this area, about 9.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while 4.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.8% is settled and 85.2% is unproductive land. Over the past two decades the amount of land that is settled has increased by and the agricultural land has decreased by.

Climate

Zermatt has a subarctic climate. Summertime is very pleasant in Zermatt, with mild days and cool nights, while winter is cold and snowy, with highs around freezing and annual snowfall averaging 128 inches.

Tourism

The village was "discovered" by mid-nineteenth-century British mountaineers, most notably Edward Whymper, whose summit of the Matterhorn made the village famous. The Matterhorn was one of the last alpine mountains to be summitted, and the first expedition that reached the top ended dramatically with only 3 of the 7 climbers surviving the descent. The story is related in the Matterhorn Museum.
Zermatt is a starting point for hikes into the mountains, including the Haute Route that leads to Chamonix in France and the Patrouille des Glaciers. Cable cars and chair lifts carry skiers in the winter and hikers in the summer; the highest of them leads to the Klein Matterhorn at, a peak on the ridge between Breithorn and Matterhorn that offers extensive views in all directions. It is possible to cross into Italy via the Cervinia cable car station. A rack railway line runs up to the summit of the Gornergrat at 3,089 m. Zermatt is also the western terminus for the Glacier Express rail service connecting to St. Moritz and the MGB.
Together with eleven other towns Zermatt is a member of the community Best of the Alps.

Transport

To prevent air pollution that could obscure the town's view of the Matterhorn, the entire town is a combustion-engine car-free zone. Almost all vehicles in Zermatt are battery driven and almost completely silent. Electric vehicles are allowed for local commerces. The Cantonal police can issue a permit which allows residents to drive and park at the northern outskirts and for the permission to bring combustion engine vehicles in to the town such as construction vehicles. Emergency and municipal vehicles, generally use combustion engines, although even some of these are non-combustion,.
Passenger vehicles operating within Zermatt include tiny electric shuttles provided by hotels to carry visitors from the main train station to the hotel properties, "electro" taxis operated by four major Zermatt families, and "electro" buses, which serve two routes: one between the major hotel areas and the stations of the various ski-lifts, and the other following a similar route but also serving the more rural "suburb" of Winkelmatten. Horse-drawn carriages can also be found; some are operated by hotels and others are available for hire.
approaching Zermatt
Most visitors reach Zermatt by the rack assisted railway train from the nearby town of Täsch. Trains also depart for Zermatt from farther down the valley at Visp and Brig, which are on the main Swiss rail network. The town also has a heliport and a local helicopter operator, Air Zermatt, which also provides alpine rescue services.
In 2007, a project group was formed to evaluate options for development of the local transportation network. The results of this study are published in the December 2007 edition of Zermatt Inside. The six options explored are a coaster, a funicular, a metro, moving sidewalks, a gondola and more "electro" buses.
In 2019 work started to improve access on the Kirchbrücke - one of the most popular places to photograph the Matterhorn. The viewing area will be widened to keep tourists off the road and away from electric vehicles. The project should be complete by autumn 2019.

Skiing in Zermatt

Zermatt is known throughout the world for its skiing, especially Triftji for its moguls. The high altitude results in consistent skiing continuously throughout the summer.
Skiing in Zermatt is split up into four areas: Sunnegga, Gornergrat, Klein Matterhorn and Schwarzsee. There is also a connection to Cervinia and Valtournenche in Italy through the Plateau Rosa glacier.
In 2008, Zermatt hosted an "Infinity Downhill Race". The race took place on 13 and 14 December and comprised a course descending from the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise and finished in Zermatt itself. The course was long and featured a descent.

Sunnegga

The Sunnegga Paradise is accessed via the SunneggaExpress funicular railway, followed by a gondola to Blauherd and finally a cable car onwards to the Rothorn above. The topography of the mountain and the valley tends to keep the Rothorn clear and sunny, even when Zermatt is submerged in cloud.
From Blauherd there is a gondola down to Gant, and from there a connecting cablecar goes to Hohtälli. This cable car and the newer 4-seat chairlift Sunnegga-Findeln-Breitboden provide connections between Sunnegga and Gornergrat. With few steep slopes, this mountain is often used to train younger skiers.

Gornergrat

The Gornergrat is served by the Gornergrat railway, a 29-minute ride to the Gornergrat peak, via Riffelalp, Rotenboden and Riffelberg,. At the summit, the hotel and restaurant have been refurbished and accommodate a shopping centre. Riffelalp station is linked to Riffelalp Resort by a short tramway line named Riffelalptram.
A cable car heads up from Hohtälli to the Rote Nase. This final lift serves a freeride area but can be unreliable as this mountainside requires good snow cover to be skiable. The lifts in this area generally open for the season in late February or early March - cablecar is now permanently closed, with no replacement lift planned. A new slope leading back from Hohtälli to Kellensee just under the Gornergrat replaced this lift to maintain the link from the Rothorn to Gornergrat.

Klein Matterhorn / Schwarzsee

Near the southern end of Zermatt, the Matterhorn Express gondola transports passengers up to the interchange station at Furi. From here there is access to Schwarzsee via a gondola to the right, a cable car that leads on to the Trockener Steg midstation, and a new gondola, opened on 18 December 2006, links Furi to Riffelberg on the Gornergrat mountain. This lift addresses one of the most persistent criticisms of Zermatt: that it is very difficult to ski the two sides of the valley without a tiresome trek through Zermatt between the Gornergratbahn and the Matterhorn Express at opposite ends of the town.
Testa Grigia at the top of the Theodul Pass serves as a connection to the Italian ski-resorts of Cervinia and Valtournenche. From the Swiss side it is only reachable by skilift, but from the Italian side by a chairlift and by a cablecar. In March 2019 it was announced that a new lift - the 'Alpine Crossing' - will connect Testa Grigia and Klein Matterhorn from spring 2021. There are customs offices here as well as a small alpine museum.
Zermatt is marketed as an all year skiing resort, with summer skiing limited to the Theodul Glacier behind the Klein Matterhorn. Whilst strictly true, during the off season in May and June there will only tend to be one or two runs open, and the main glacier area does not open until July.
In operation since 25 October 2003, the Furggsattel six-seater chairlift has twelve masts that stand directly on the glacial ice of the Theodul Glacier - a first for Switzerland.
The new CHF52 million 3S Glacier Ride Cable Car from the resort to Klein Matterhorn was opened on 29 September 2018. It has an uplift capacity of 2000 people per hour and takes just 9 minutes to reach the top using 25 cabins, each with 28 seats.

History of the lift system

The Zermatt Bergbahnen's website mentions a few projects for the following years:
As well as several changes to the slopes, and the placement of new snowmaking installations.

Coat of arms

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a lion rampant Or langued of the first on Coupeaux Vert between two Mullets of Five Argent in chief.

Demographics

Zermatt has a population of., 39.0% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 3 years the population has changed at a rate of 0.54%. The birth rate in the municipality, in 2013, was 9.5 while the death rate was 4.9 per thousand residents.
Most of the population speaks German as their first language, Portuguese is the second most common and Italian is the third. There are 226 people who speak French and 1 person who speaks Romansh.
, the population was 51.6% male and 48.4% female. The population was made up of 1,840 Swiss men and 1,166 non-Swiss men. There were 1,837 Swiss women and 985 non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 2,214 or about 37.0% were born in Zermatt and lived there in 2000. There were 720 or 12.0% who were born in the same canton, while 774 or 12.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 2,039 or 34.1% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers make up 18.5% of the population, while adults are 69.5% and seniors make up 12.0%.
, there were 2,763 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 2,830 married individuals, 207 widows or widowers and 188 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 2,441 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.2 persons per household. There were 921 households that consist of only one person and 128 households with five or more people., a total of 2,167 apartments were permanently occupied, while 1,890 apartments were seasonally occupied and 103 apartments were empty. Of the 977 inhabited buildings in the municipality, in 2000, about 22.8% were single family homes and 45.5% were multiple family buildings. Additionally, about 10.8% of the buildings were built before 1919, while 14.4% were built between 1991 and 2000. In 2012 the rate of construction of new housing units per 1000 residents was 13.65. The vacancy rate for the municipality,, was 0.28%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:

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bar:1941 from:start till:1148 text:"1,148"
bar:1950 from:start till:1395 text:"1,395"
bar:1960 from:start till:2731 text:"2,731"
bar:1970 from:start till:3101 text:"3,101"
bar:1980 from:start till:3548 text:"3,548"
bar:1990 from:start till:4225 text:"4,225"
bar:2000 from:start till:5988 text:"5,988"

Notable people

The petroglyphs and prehistoric grinding stone at Hubelwäng is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance.

Politics

In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the CVP with 43.7% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP, the FDP and the SP. In the federal election, a total of 1378 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 48.1%.
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the CVP which received 68.98% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP, the SP and the FDP. In the federal election, a total of 1,326 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 46.0%.
In the 2009 Conseil d'Etat/Staatsrat election a total of 1,009 votes were cast, of which 66 or about 6.5% were invalid. The voter participation was 34.4%, which is much less than the cantonal average of 54.67%. In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election a total of 1,289 votes were cast, of which 105 or about 8.1% were invalid. The voter participation was 45.4%, which is much less than the cantonal average of 59.88%.

Economy

About half of the jobs in Zermatt are in the hotel and restaurant industry.
, there were a total of 6,370 people employed in the municipality. Of these, a total of 42 people worked in 19 businesses in the primary economic sector. The secondary sector employed 521 workers in 68 separate businesses. Finally, the tertiary sector provided 5,807 jobs in 736 businesses. In 2013 a total of 13.7% of the population received social assistance.
the total number of full-time equivalent jobs was 4,261. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 20, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 538 of which 83 or were in manufacturing and 385 were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 3,703. In the tertiary sector, 531 or 14.3% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 477 or 12.9% were in the movement and storage of goods, 2,178 or 58.8% were in a hotel or restaurant, 38 or 1.0% were in the information industry, 54 or 1.5% were the insurance or financial industry, 116 or 3.1% were technical professionals or scientists, 56 or 1.5% were in education and 87 or 2.3% were in health care.
, there were 744 workers who commuted into the municipality and 89 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 8.4 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. Of the working population, 7.1% used public transportation to get to work, and 2.6% used a private car.

Religion

From the, 4,458 or 74.4% were Roman Catholic, while 458 or 7.6% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 131 members of an Orthodox church, there were 2 individuals who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 59 individuals who belonged to another Christian church. There were 4 individuals who were Jewish, and 82 who were Muslim. There were 6 individuals who were Buddhist and 4 individuals who belonged to another church. 205 belonged to no church, are agnostics or atheists, and 602 individuals did not answer the question. There is an English Church in Zermatt that was founded in 1870. The Intercontinental Church Society provide Anglican chaplains for the English Church for English speakers who work, study or travel overseas.

Education

In Zermatt about 1,988 or of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 470 or have completed additional higher education. Of the 470 who completed tertiary schooling, 51.1% were Swiss men, 21.1% were Swiss women, 14.0% were non-Swiss men and 13.8% were non-Swiss women.
During the 2010-2011 school year there were a total of 677 students in the Zermatt school system. The education system in the Canton of Valais allows young children to attend one year of non-obligatory Kindergarten. During that school year, there 6 kindergarten classes and 106 kindergarten students. The canton's school system requires students to attend six years of primary school. In Zermatt there were a total of 24 classes and 458 students in the primary school. The secondary school program consists of three lower, obligatory years of schooling, followed by three to five years of optional, advanced schools. There were 219 lower secondary students who attended school in Zermatt. All the upper secondary students attended school in another municipality.
, there were 98 students in Zermatt who came from another municipality, while 23 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

Crime

In 2014 the crime rate, of the over 200 crimes listed in the Swiss Criminal Code, in Zermatt was 56.3 per thousand residents. This rate is only 68.7% of the cantonal rate. During the same period, the rate of drug crimes was 7 per thousand residents. This rate is about one and a half times greater than the rate in the district, but is only 68.0% of the rate in the canton and is only 70.7% of the national rate. The rate of violations of immigration, visa and work permit laws was 0.5 per thousand residents. This rate is lower than average, only 71.4% of the low rate in the district and is only 14.3% of the rate in the canton and 10.2% of the rate for the entire country.