Lauerz is a village and

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

Schwyz District Schwyz District is a district of the canton of Schwyz, Switzerland. It is both the largest and most populous of the six districts of the canton of Schwyz, accounting for around half its surface area, and 40% of the population. It has a population ...

of the

canton of Schwyz The canton of Schwyz ( ; ; ; ) is a Cantons of Switzerland, canton in central Switzerland between the Swiss Alps, Alps in the south, Lake Lucerne to the west and Lake Zürich in the north, centred on and named after the town of Schwyz. It is one ...

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 ...

. It adjoins

Lake Lauerz __NOTOC__ Lake Lauerz (German: ''Lauerzersee'', old spelling: ''Lowerzer See'') is a lake in the Canton of Schwyz, Switzerland. Geography Its water area varies between and (depending on water level), a maximum depth of , and a water level ele ...

(''Lauerzersee'').

History

Lauerz is first mentioned in 1306 as ''Lowertz''. In September 1806, the village was very badly affected by the

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

that followed the landslide at Goldau, resulting in the deaths of 115 people in Lauerz alone.

Geography

The village of Lauerz is situated on the south shore of

(''Lauerzersee''). The municipality consists of the village of Lauerz and a number of scattered farm houses between the northern slope of the

Rigi The Rigi (or ''Mount Rigi''; also known as ''Queen of the Mountains'') is a mountain massif of the Alps, located in Central Switzerland. The whole massif is almost entirely surrounded by the water of three different bodies of water: Lake Lucerne ...

mountain and the lake. A section of the lake, together with both of its islands, Schwanau and Roggenburg, are also within the municipality. The municipality of Lauerz has an area, , of . Of this area, 44.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while 35.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 4.1% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (15.5%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains).

Demographics

Lauerz has a population (as of ) of . , 6.7% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 15.2%. Most of the population () speaks German (97.1%), with English being second most common ( 0.9%) and Albanian being third ( 0.8%).Swiss Federal Statistical Office
accessed 31-Aug-2009 the gender distribution of the population was 51.5% male and 48.5% female. The age distribution, , in Lauerz is; 266 people or 30.4% of the population is between 0 and 19. 255 people or 29.2% are 20 to 39, and 261 people or 29.9% are 40 to 64. The senior population distribution is 60 people or 6.9% are 65 to 74. There are 20 people or 2.3% who are 70 to 79 and 12 people or 1.37% of the population who are over 80.Canton Schwyz Statistics
accessed 27 August 2009 there are 306 households, of which 70 households (or about 22.9%) contain only a single individual. 35 or about 11.4% are large households, with at least five members. In the 2007 election the most popular party was the SVP which received 52% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (22.7%), the FDP (13.5%) and the SPS (10.4%). The entire Swiss population is generally well educated. In Lauerz about 64% 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 ...

''). Lauerz has an unemployment rate of 0.76%. , there were 73 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 29 businesses involved in this sector. 55 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 10 businesses in this sector. 83 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 19 businesses in this sector. From the , 731 or 83.6% are

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

, while 71 or 8.1% belonged to the

Swiss Reformed Church The Protestant Church in Switzerland (PCS), formerly named Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches until 31 December 2019, is a federation of 25 member churches – 24 cantonal churches and the Evangelical-Methodist Church of Switzerland. The P ...

. There are 7 (or about 0.80% of the population) who are

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

ic. 49 (or about 5.61% of the population) belong to no church, are

agnostic Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is either unknowable in principle or unknown in fact. (page 56 in 1967 edition) It can also mean an apathy towards such religious belief and refer to ...

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

, and 16 individuals (or about 1.83% of the population) did not answer the question. The historical population is given in the following table:

References

External links

{{Authority control Municipalities of the canton of Schwyz