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 Canton may refer to: Administrative divisions * Canton (administrative division), territorial/administrative division in some countries * Township (Canada), known as ''canton'' in Canadian French Arts and entertainment * Canton (band), an It ...

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 The Lorze is the main river of the Canton of Zug, Switzerland. It flows from Ägerisee through Lake Zug into the Reuss. See also * List of rivers of Switzerland The following is a list of rivers of Switzerland (and tributaries thereof). Incl ...

river. It was originally a

linear village In mathematics, the term ''linear'' is used in two distinct senses for two different properties: * linearity of a '' function'' (or '' mapping''); * linearity of a ''polynomial''. An example of a linear function is the function defined by f(x)= ...

along the road between

Lake Zug __NOTOC__ Lake Zug () is a lake in Central Switzerland, situated between Lake Lucerne and Lake Zurich. It stretches for between Arth and the Cham- Zug bay. The Lorze as the main feeder river empties its waters into the lake at its northern ex ...

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 A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as environmentalism and social justice. Green party platforms typically embrace Social democracy, social democratic economic policies and fo ...

(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 Secondary education is the education level following primary education and preceding tertiary education. Level 2 or ''lower secondary education'' (less commonly ''junior secondary education'') is considered the second and final phase of basic e ...

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 The International School of Zug and Luzern (ISZL) is a private, coeducational, non-profit day school in Switzerland for students aged 3 to 18 in the Zurich metropolitan area, greater Zurich area. Founded in 1961, the school enrolls about 1,200 stu ...

, 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 Lego Produktions AG Schweiz was a major producer in Baar, Switzerland, Baar (ZG), Switzerland for the The Lego Group, Lego toy company, from 1974 to 2004. At the time its closing was announced in 2001, 30% of the world production of Lego ...

, a toy manufacturing plant owned by the

Lego Group Lego A/S, also known as the Lego Group, is a Danish construction toy production company based in Billund. It manufactures Lego-branded toys, consisting mostly of interlocking ABS plastic and rubber bricks. The Lego Group has also built several ...

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 Flex Ltd. (previously known as Flextronics International Ltd. or Flextronics) is an American Singapore-domiciled multinational manufacturing company. It is the third largest global electronics manufacturing services (EMS), original design ...

, 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 Sika AG is a Swiss multinational corporation, multinational Specialty chemical industry, specialty chemical company that supplies to the building and motor vehicle industries, headquartered in Baar, Switzerland, Baar, Switzerland. The company deve ...

, a chemical company with products for construction and automotive, and

Veeam Veeam Software Group is a privately held US-based information technology company owned by Insight Partners. It develops backup, disaster recovery and modern data protection software for virtual, cloud-native, SaaS, Kubernetes and physical workloa ...

, 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 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 constructi ...

and there are 278 businesses in this sector. 9,335 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 ...

, 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 Baar railway station () is a railway station in the Swiss canton of Zug, situated in the municipality of Baar. The station is located on the Thalwil–Arth-Goldau railway and is an intermediate stop for InterRegio trains from Zürich to Lucerne ...

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 The Zurich S-Bahn () system is a network of rail lines that has been incrementally expanded to cover the ZVV area, which comprises the entire canton of Zurich and portions of neighbouring cantons (Aargau, Glarus, Schaffhausen, Schwyz, ...

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 Yvonne Gilli (born 7 March 1957) is a physician and a Swiss political personality. She is a member of the Green Party of Switzerland. Biography Gilli was born in Baar in the Canton of Zug. She completed a three-year diploma as a nurse after comp ...

(born 1957 in Baar), physician and politician,

Swiss National Council The National Council (; ; ; ) is a house of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland, representing the people. The other house, Council of States, represents the states, preventing more populous parts of the country overpowering the rest. As the p ...

2007-2015 ;Sport * Harry Froboess (1899–1985 in Baar), a German stunt diver and high diver *

Kurt Schmid Kurt Schmid (11 February 1932 – 2 December 2000) was a Swiss rower who competed in the 1952 Summer Olympics and in the 1960 Summer Olympics. Schmid was born in 1932 in Baar, Switzerland, the son of Olympic rower Karl Schmid. Schmid Jr. r ...

(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 Brigitte McMahon-Huber (born 25 March 1967 in Baar) is an athlete from Switzerland, who competed in triathlon. McMahon competed at the first Olympic triathlon at the 2000 Summer Olympics. She won the gold medal with a total time of 2:00:40.52 ...

(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 Moreno Merenda (born 17 May 1978) is a former Swiss footballer and the current assistant manager of SC Cham. Career Merenda was born in Baar, and began his football career at home town club FC Baar. He made the transition to professional footba ...

(born 1978 in Baar), former footballer, about 400 club caps, assistant manager of

SC Cham SC Cham 1910 is a Swiss football team based in Cham and currently play in the Promotion League, the third tier of Swiss football. The team were founded in 1910. History The club was founded on 14 June 1910 and was the first football club in ...

Kimi Räikkönen Kimi-Matias Räikkönen (; born 17 October 1979), nicknamed "the Iceman", is a Finnish racing driver who competed in Formula One between 2001 and 2021 for Sauber, McLaren, Ferrari, Lotus, and Alfa Romeo. Räikkönen won the 2007 Formula One ...

(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 Sebastian Vettel (; born 3 July 1987) is a German racing driver who most recently competed in Formula One from to . Vettel won four Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles, which he won consecutively from to with Red Bull, and rema ...

(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