Brig, officially Brig-Glis (; ), is a historic town 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 district of

Brig A brig is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: two masts which are both square rig, square-rigged. Brigs originated in the second half of the 18th century and were a common type of smaller merchant vessel or warship from then until the l ...

in the

canton of Valais Valais ( , ; ), more formally, the Canton of Valais or Wallis, is one of the cantons of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of thirteen districts and its capital and largest city is Sion, Switzer ...

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 ...

. The current municipality was formed in 1972 through the merger of Brig (city), Brigerbad and Glis.Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz
published by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 19 July 2011 Together with other Alpine towns, Brig-Glis engages in the Alpine Town of the Year Association for the implementation of the Alpine Convention to achieve sustainable development in the Alpine Arc. Brig-Glis was awarded Alpine Town of the Year 2008. The official language of Brig is (the Swiss variety of Standard)

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

, but the main spoken language is the local variant of the Alemannic

Swiss German Swiss German (Standard German: , ,Because of the many different dialects, and because there is no #Conventions, defined orthography for any of them, many different spellings can be found. and others; ) is any of the Alemannic German, Alemannic ...

dialect.

History

The name Brig is derived from ''Briva'', or "bridge". Its older houses are very Italian in appearance, while its most prominent buildings ( Stockalper Palace, former Jesuits' college and Ursuline convent) all date from the 17th century, and are due to the generosity of a single member of the local Stockalper family, the

baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often Hereditary title, hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than ...

Kaspar Stockalper. The prosperity of Brig is bound up with the

Simplon Pass The Simplon Pass (; ; ; ; ; ) is a high mountain pass between the Pennine Alps and the Lepontine Alps in Switzerland. It connects Brig, Switzerland, Brig in the canton of Valais with Domodossola in Piedmont (Italy). The pass itself and the villag ...

, so that it gradually supplanted the more ancient village of Naters opposite, becoming a separate parish (the church is at Glis, a few minutes from the town) in 1517. Its medieval name was ''Briga dives''. The opening of the carriage road across the Simplon (1807) and of the tunnel beneath the pass (1906), as well as the fact that above Brig is the steeper and less fertile portion of the Upper Valais (then much frequented by tourists), greatly increased the importance and size of the town.

Brig

Brig is first mentioned in 1215 as ''Briga''. The first evidence of human habitation near Brig comes from a few

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

objects, a bracelet and a dagger. The area remained inhabited through the Latène era with scattered

Walser The Walser people are the speakers of the Walser German dialects, a variety of Highest Alemannic. They inhabit the region of the Alps of Swiss Alps, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, as well as the fringes of Italy and Austria. The Walser peopl ...

settlements. During the

Roman era In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

the Roman influence was strongest along the

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

on the valley floor. The area remained settled during the

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

Migration Period The Migration Period ( 300 to 600 AD), also known as the Barbarian Invasions, was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories ...

and

Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages (historiography), Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start o ...

. The De Briga family is first mentioned in 1215. The family was probably a branch of the Mangoldi line which was first mentioned in 1181 and is probably identical to the De Curia (im Hof) family which appeared between 1308 and 1335. The family seat was the ''Höllenburg'', which was a tower above Brig. By the 17th century, the tower had been demolished. It is likely that the city was founded by the

Bishop of Sion The Diocese of Sion (, , ) is a Latin Catholic ecclesiastical territory in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. It is the oldest bishopric in the country and one of the oldest north of the Alps. The history of the Bishops of Sion, of the Abbey of ...

, when they built a tower and curtain wall in the 12th century. The original tower was replaced with a new tower in the 13th century, which was demolished in 1970. In the 14th century, Brig was first mentioned as a town. It grew in importance and in 1518 became the capital of the ''Zenden'' (a term for a district in Valais) of Brig. Together with the capital, it became the seat of the district court. The

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...

is first mentioned in 1618. The city wall also served as a

flood wall A floodwall is a freestanding, permanent, engineered structure designed to prevent encroachment of floodwaters. Floodwalls are mainly used on locations where space is scarce, such as cities or where building levees or dikes (dykes) would in ...

to help protect the town from the Saltina, which often flooded. The nearby

Rhône The Rhône ( , ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Ròse''; Franco-Provençal, Arpitan: ''Rôno'') is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and Southeastern France before dischargi ...

caused floods in 1469, 1506, 1640, 1752, 1775, 1868 and 1920. In 1755 and again in 1855 an earthquake damaged the city. The plague decimated the population in 1465, 1475, 1485 and 1575. In 1799 French troops pillaged the city, burned the archives and inflicted great damage. Kaspar Stockalper

Starting in the middle of the 13th century, it was a storage, transhipment and customs station for transportation over the Simplon Pass. By the

early modern era The early modern period is a historical period that is defined either as part of or as immediately preceding the modern period, with divisions based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity. There is no exact date ...

a number of families were wealthy from trade and built palatial homes and public buildings in the city. The

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

tower of the Provincial Governor Kaspar Metz Elten was built in 1526. Then, in 1658–1678, Kaspar Stockalper built the Stockalper Palace with three towers, an arcaded courtyard and a park. The early modern city also featured the old Stockalper house (ca. 1533), the Salzhof (16th century, demolished 1967) which served as a transhipment and storage point, the patrician houses of Wegener (17th century), Mannhaft (1709) and Fernanda de Stockalper (1727). Outside the city, in 1677, Kaspar Stockalper built the Matteni manor house for Georg Christoph Mannhaft. Brig originally belonged to the large

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

of Naters until 1642 when it became part of the parish of Glis. Brig became its own parish in 1957 and built a

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

in 1967–1970. In 1624–1627, the

Jesuits The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

established a branch in the town. Between 1662 and 1773 and again between 1814 and 1847, they ran a college in the town. The college was built from 1663 to 1673 followed by the college church from 1673 to 1687. Between 1773 and 1814 the college was administered by the

Piarists The Piarists (), officially named the Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools (), abbreviated SchP, is a religious order of clerics regular of the Catholic Church founded in 1617 by Spanish priest Joseph Calasanz ...

. From 1848 it was operated by the canton of Valais; until 1990 the rector was a

lay Lay or LAY may refer to: Places *Lay Range, a subrange of mountains in British Columbia, Canada * Lay, Loire, a French commune *Lay (river), France * Lay, Iran, a village * Lay, Kansas, United States, an unincorporated community * Lay Dam, Alaba ...

priest. The first Capuchin monastery was built between 1650 and 1660, but the existing monastery is from 1947 to 1948. An Ursuline convent was founded in 1661 with a girls' school and the Ursuline Church dates from 1732. Since 1937 it has been the mission house (and sometimes a seminary) of the Mariannhill Missionaries. The Anthony hospital was established in 1304. The gothic hospital church was built in the 14th century and the first hospital religious order was founded in 1399. It was later passed to the community and served the town until 1908. The citizenry built the Sebastian Chapel in 1636–1637 and restored it in 1972–1973. In 1951, Karl Schmid built the Wehrmann chapel. The construction of the new road over the Simplon Pass in 1801–1805, the expansion of the old road between 1949 and 1960, as well as the construction of a national highway starting in 1960, have allowed increasing traffic through Brig. In 1890–1905 stagecoaches transported 152,816 persons to

Domodossola Domodossola (; ) is a city and (municipality) in the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, in the region of Piedmont, northern Italy. It was also known as Oscela, Oscella, Oscella dei Leponzi, Ossolo, Ossola Lepontiorum, and Domo d'Ossola (due to it ...

over the pass. In 1906 the first car drove over the Simplon. Since 1919, postal buses have run over the pass into Brig. This service expanded from seasonal to year-round in 1970. The first rail line into Brig was finished in 1874 and connected the town to the west by the Rhône Valley. The Lötschberg Tunnel, which opened in 1913, connected Brig to

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

. When the

Simplon Tunnel The Simplon Tunnel (''Simplontunnel'', ''Traforo del Sempione'' or ''Galleria del Sempione'') is a railway tunnel on the Simplon railway that connects Brig, Switzerland, Brig, Switzerland and Domodossola, Italy, through the Alps, providing a shor ...

was built in 1906 and the second tunnel was added in 1921, it provided a year-round, reliable rail link with Italy. In 1926, the Furka-Oberalp rail line connected Brig with

Disentis Mustér (, Romansh) or Disentis (German), with its official name Disentis/Mustér is a village and a municipality in the Surselva Region in the Swiss canton of Grisons. The skiing and summer tourism resort high up in the Rhine valley is the si ...

in Graubünden. The railway station was built in 1877–1878 and expanded in 1910 with a new building, which also serves as a freight station and border station. The 1910 station was expanded in 1957, 1961 and 1993. In 1859 a telegraph office was built in town, followed by a local telephone network in 1898. Brig Glis railway station

As it became easier to travel to Brig, the tourism industry grew. The number of hotel beds in town rose from 120 in 1800, to 425 in 1912 and to 1,000 in 1993. By 2002 the number of beds had dropped to about 820. In 1858 a large sawmill was built in town. This was followed by other smaller industrial companies, including woodworking, pasta production, telephone apparatus, gloves and knitwear. The Brig-Naters power plant was built in 1900 to supply power to the towns and their growing industry. However, in the middle to late 20th century, most of the industrial plants left Brig. In 1990, 81% of the workforce worked in the services or

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 ...

of the economy. Only 18% worked in industry and 1% worked in agriculture. In 2001 there were 7,129 employees in Brig-Glis, working for 803 companies.

Glis

The oldest traces of human settlements around Glis were discovered in 1992 and included significant traces of settlements from the Bronze and Iron Ages. During the Middle Ages, Glis, Holz and Gamsen formed a municipality in the ''Zenden''. Starting around 1320, the settlement of Wickert (now part of Glis) was a farming estate that belonged to the

collegiate church In Christianity, a collegiate church is a church where the daily office of worship is maintained by a college of canons, a non-monastic or "secular" community of clergy, organised as a self-governing corporate body, headed by a dignitary bearing ...

of Sion. In the early 14th century, an earthen wall was built across the Rhône Valley at Gamsen. This wall, portions of which are still visible, was probably built to protect against invasions from

Savoy Savoy (; )  is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps. Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south and west and to the Aosta Vall ...

. In 1596, an iron mine was opened near the village. This mine was acquired in 1636, by Kaspar Stockalper. Until 1642, Glis belonged to the parish of Naters but had been relatively independent in religious matters since the 12th–13th century. The Church of Our Lady on the Glisacker has been a pilgrimage centre of the Upper Valais since the 14th century. Glis was raised to an independent parish in 1642. At that time, the parish included Brig, Brigerbad, Ried-Brig, Termen, Gamsen and Eggerberg. Excavations in and around the church in 1984 discovered an early Christian

aisleless church An aisleless church () is a single-nave church building that consists of a single hall-like room. While similar to the hall church, the aisleless church lacks aisles or passageways on either side of the nave and separated from the nave by col ...

from around 500. The excavations also discovered a baptistery and side rooms and parts of four other churches. The present church, which combines elements of both the Renaissance and the late Gothic period, owes its appearance to Prismell master builders Peter and Christian Bodmer. In the mid-17th century, they completed the plans drawn up in 1519 by Ulrich Ruffiner. After the Second World War, Glis developed from a farming village into a residential area for Brig. In the merger with Brig, Glis brought a large amount of land and a large industrial company, the explosives factory ''Société suisse des explosifs'' which was founded in Gamsen in 1894.

Brigerbad

Very little is known about the early history of this small village located between the Rhone and the far north side of the valley. There are two buildings in the village that are from the Middle Ages: the tower of

Junker Junker (, , , , , , ka, იუნკერი, ) is a noble honorific, derived from Middle High German , meaning 'young nobleman'Duden; Meaning of Junker, in German/ref> or otherwise 'young lord' (derivation of and ). The term is traditionally ...

von Baden, which may have been built in the 13th century, and the so-called bishops barn, which may date from the 15th century. Brigerbad was always part of the parish of Glis, though they did build a chapel in 1721. The village began to develop local government and law in the 16th and 17th century and the first statutes were written in 1671. The floods of the Rhone, maintenance of Gamsner bridge (first mentioned in 1395) and the reclamation of the Eyen were commonplace activities from the 13th century until the Rhone Correction in 1873–82. Brigerbad was known for its hot springs. The village's name literally means "Brig's baths." They were discovered in 1471 by Anton Walker and flourished in the 16th century under Peter Owlig. The thermal hot spring baths began to decay in the 17th century, but were rebuilt in 1934–35 and again in 1956–60.

Geography

It is a picturesque small town in Upper Valais, situated at the foot of the northern slope of the

in the

Alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...

, on the right bank of the Saltine stream, and a little above its junction with the Rhone. Brig is surrounded by many high Alpine summits. Within the municipality are the summits of the Glishorn, Spitzhorli and Tochuhorn. Brig is located close to the Swiss-Italian borders. Brig-Glis had an area, (as of the 2004/09 survey) of . Of this area, about 11.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while 48.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 11.6% is settled (buildings or roads) and 27.9% is unproductive land. Over the past two decades (1979/85-2004/09) the amount of land that is settled has increased by and the agricultural land has decreased by .Swiss Federal Statistical Office – Regional portraits
accessed 2 May 2016

Coat of arms

The

blazon In heraldry and heraldic vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of a coat of arms, flag or similar emblem, from which the reader can reconstruct an accurate image. The verb ''to blazon'' means to create such a description. The visual d ...

of the municipal

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...

is ''Or, an Eagle with dragon's tail displayed Sable, crowned, beaked, langued, membered and tailed Gules bearing an Escutcheon Gules three Mullets Or in pale.''

Demographics

Brig-Glis has a population () of . , 15.5% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 3 years (2010–2013) the population has changed at a rate of 2.86%. The

birth rate Birth rate, also known as natality, is the total number of live childbirth, human births per 1,000 population for a given period divided by the length of the period in years. The number of live births is normally taken from a universal registr ...

in the municipality, in 2013, was 8.9 while the

death rate Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of d ...

was 10.3 per thousand residents.Swiss Federal Statistical Office
accessed 25-August-2011 Most of the population () speaks

(10,465 or 90.3%) as their first language,

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

is the second most common (221 or 1.9%) and French is the third (197 or 1.7%). There are 8 people who speak Romansh. The language used in every day transactions is a unique German dialect, only used in this particular canton. , the gender distribution of the population was 47.9% male and 52.1% female. The population was made up of 5,049 Swiss men (41.2% of the population) and 826 (6.7%) non-Swiss men. There were 5,477 Swiss women (44.7%) and 902 (7.4%) non-Swiss women.Ständige Wohnbevolkerung nach Geschlecht und Heimat am 31.12.2009.xls
accessed 24 August 2011 Of the population in the municipality 4,456 or about 38.4% were born in Brig-Glis and lived there in 2000. There were 4,077 or 35.2% who were born in the same canton, while 1,154 or 10.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 1,479 or 12.8% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 17.5% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) are 63.8% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 18.7%. , there were 5,111 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 5,331 married individuals, 678 widows or widowers and 470 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 – 2000
accessed 2 February 2011 , there were 4,494 private households in the municipality and an average of 2.4 persons per household. There were 1,361 households that consist of only one person and 288 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 4,634 households that answered this question, 29.4% were households made up of just one person and there were 63 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 1,233 married couples without children, 1,495 married couples with children. There were 263 single parents with a child or children. There were 79 households that were made up of unrelated people and 140 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing. there were 700 single family homes (or 44.6% of the total) out of a total of 1,571 inhabited buildings. There were 590 multi-family buildings (37.6%), along with 143 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (9.1%) and 138 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (8.8%).Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB – Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 – Gebäude und Wohnungen
accessed 28 January 2011 , a total of 4,296 apartments (87.6% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 453 apartments (9.2%) were seasonally occupied and 154 apartments (3.1%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 11.6 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.59%. The historical population is given in the following chart: Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8) ImageSize = width:960 height:210 PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:12000 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:2000 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:400 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1850 from:start till:1406 text:"1,406" bar:1860 from:start till:1782 text:"1,782" bar:1870 from:start till:1860 text:"1,860" bar:1880 from:start till:2075 text:"2,075" bar:1888 from:start till:2050 text:"2,050" bar:1900 from:start till:3351 text:"3,351" bar:1910 from:start till:3934 text:"3,934" bar:1920 from:start till:4512 text:"4,512" bar:1930 from:start till:4418 text:"4,418" bar:1941 from:start till:4965 text:"4,965" bar:1950 from:start till:5876 text:"5,876" bar:1960 from:start till:7268 text:"7,268" bar:1970 from:start till:8755 text:"8,755" bar:1980 from:start till:9608 text:"9,608" bar:1990 from:start till:10602 text:"10,602" bar:2000 from:start till:11590 text:"11,590"

Heritage sites of national significance

The '' Stockalperpalast'', the Gamsenmauer and the Church of ''Mariä Himmelfahrt'' with

ossuary An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years th ...

are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance. The entire old town of Brig is part of the

Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites The Federal Inventory of Heritage Sites (ISOS) is part of a 1981 Ordinance of the Swiss Federal Council implementing the Federal Law on the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage. Sites of national importance Types The types are based on t ...

Politics

In the 2015 federal election the most popular party was the CVP with 48.6% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (32.7%), the SP (10.3%) and the FDP (4.3%). In the federal election, a total of 5,698 votes were cast, and the

voter turnout In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This is typically either the percentage of Voter registration, registered voters, Suffrage, eligible voters, or all Voti ...

was 62.1%. The 2015 election saw a large change in the voting when compared to 2011, with the percentage of the vote received by the SVP increasing from 25.9% in 2011 to 32.7% in 2015. In the 2009 Conseil d'État/Staatsrat election a total of 4,340 votes were cast, of which 565 or about 13.0% were invalid. The voter participation was 50.1%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 54.67%. In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election a total of 4,825 votes were cast, of which 350 or about 7.3% were invalid. The voter participation was 56.2%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 59.88%. In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the CVP which received 55.37% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (19.18%), the SP (14.86%) and the FDP (7.63%). In the federal election, a total of 4,878 votes were cast, and the

was 56.3%.

Economy

, Brig-Glis had an unemployment rate of 2.1%. , there were 83 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 46 businesses involved in this sector. 1,297 people were 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 were 137 businesses in this sector. 6,755 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 663 businesses in this sector. There were 5,400 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 41.7% of the workforce. the total number of

full-time equivalent Full-time equivalent (FTE), or whole time equivalent (WTE), is a unit of measurement that indicates the workload of an employed person (or student) in a way that makes workloads or class loads comparable across various contexts. FTE is often use ...

jobs was 6,752. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 33, of which 23 were in agriculture, 8 were in forestry or lumber production and 2 were in fishing or fisheries. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 1,242 of which 361 or (29.1%) were in manufacturing, 2 or (0.2%) were in mining and 798 (64.3%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 5,477. In the tertiary sector; 970 or 17.7% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 1,137 or 20.8% were in the movement and storage of goods, 436 or 8.0% were in a hotel or restaurant, 98 or 1.8% were in the information industry, 234 or 4.3% were the insurance or financial industry, 522 or 9.5% were technical professionals or scientists, 458 or 8.4% were in education and 1,042 or 19.0% were in health care. , there were 4,531 workers who commuted into the municipality and 1,880 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 2.4 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. About 8.7% of the workforce coming into Brig-Glis are coming from outside Switzerland.Swiss Federal Statistical Office – Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 17.7% used public transportation to get to work, and 40.5% used a private car.

Transportation

Three

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

railway lines, namely the Simplon railway, the Milan–Domodossola railway, and the Bern-Lötschberg-Simplon railway, operated by either SBB CFF FFS or

BLS AG BLS AG is a Swiss railway company created by the 2006 merger of BLS Lötschbergbahn and Regionalverkehr Mittelland AG. Its ownership is divided, with 55.8% of it owned by the canton of Berne, and 21.7% by the Swiss Confederation. It has two ma ...

, all meet at Brig railway station. Additionally, two

metre gauge Metre-gauge railways ( US: meter-gauge railways) are narrow-gauge railways with track gauge of or 1 metre. Metre gauge is used in around of tracks around the world. It was used by several European colonial powers including France, Britain and ...

lines, both of them operated by

Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn The Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn is a narrow gauge railway line and a railway company (Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn AG, MGB) in Switzerland. The track width is . It was created in 2003 through an amalgamation of Furka Oberalp Bahn (FO) and BVZ Zermatt ...

, and the metre gauge trains converging at Brig include the

Glacier Express The Glacier Express is a direct Panorama Express (PE) train connecting railway stations of the two major mountain resorts of Zermatt and St. Moritz via Andermatt in the central Swiss Alps. The train provides a one-seat ride for an 8-hour end-to-e ...

Religion

From the , 9,613 or 82.9% were

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 634 or 5.5% 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 ...

. Of the rest of the population, there were 173 members of an Orthodox church (or about 1.49% of the population), and there were 224 individuals (or about 1.93% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 322 (or about 2.78% of the population) who were

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. There were 20 individuals who were

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

, 22 individuals who were

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

and 5 individuals who belonged to another church. 281 (or about 2.42% of the population) belonged 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 406 individuals (or about 3.50% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Brig-Glis about 4,245 or (36.6%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 1,344 or (11.6%) have completed additional higher education (either

university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

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 ...

''). Of the 1,344 who completed tertiary schooling, 61.8% were Swiss men, 21.4% were Swiss women, 10.2% were non-Swiss men and 6.6% were non-Swiss women. During the 2010–2011 school year there were a total of 1,243 students in the Brig-Glis school system. The

education system The educational system generally refers to the structure of all institutions and the opportunities for obtaining education within a country. It includes all pre-school institutions, starting from family education, and/or early childhood education ...

in the Canton of Valais allows young children to attend one year of non-obligatory

Kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...

. During that school year, there 9 kindergarten classes (KG1 or KG2) and 192 kindergarten students. The canton's school system requires students to attend six years of

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

. In Brig-Glis there were a total of 41 classes and 802 students in the primary school. The

secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

program consists of three lower, obligatory years of schooling (orientation classes), followed by three to five years of optional, advanced schools. There were 441 lower secondary students who attended school in Brig-Glis. There were 1,451 upper secondary students in the municipality and 3 schools in the municipality The first school, the Spiritus Sanctus has 941 students and 43 classes. The second school, the HSK Brig (with KSS) has 102 students and 9 classes. The final school, the HMS-FMS-SfB (Trade school-vocational school-school for vocational preparation) has 408 students and 19 classes. , there were 1,177 students in Brig-Glis who came from another municipality, while 306 residents attended schools outside the municipality. In terms of higher education, Brig is home to César Ritz Colleges Switzerland, a hospitality school named for the father of modern hospitality who was from the nearby town of Niederwald. Brig-Glis is home to the ''Mediathek Wallis – Brig'' library. The library has () 95,906 books or other media and loaned out 195,233 items in the same year. It was open a total of 260 days with an average of 53 hours per week during that year.

Weather

Brig is popular among winter sports athletes since it is surrounded by many Alp summits. The town itself lies close to the

. Due to the high altitude, the temperatures in winter often remain below zero, resulting in frost. During the summer season, heat can be intense.

Crime

In 2014 the crime rate, of the over 200 crimes listed in the

Swiss Criminal Code The Swiss Criminal Code (SR/RS 311, , , , ) is a portion of the third part (SR/RS 3) of the Swiss law, internal Swiss law ("Private law - Administration of civil justice - Enforcement") that regulates the criminal code in Switzerland. The orig ...

(running from murder, robbery and assault to accepting bribes and election fraud), in Brig-Glis was 48.8 per thousand residents, slightly lower than the national average (64.6 per thousand). During the same period, the rate of drug crimes was 17.2 per thousand residents. This rate is 73.7% greater than the national rate. The rate of violations of immigration, visa and work permit laws was 10.3 per thousand residents, which is over twice as high as the national rate (4.9 per thousand).

Notable people

* Ernest Guglielminetti (1862–1943), a medical doctor, lived and worked in Java, Sumatra, Borneo and Monaco. * Willi Dreesen (1928–2013), painter and sculptor, lived in Brig from 1967 * Peter Stephan Zurbriggen (1943–2022) archbishop of the Catholic Church and papal diplomat *

Viola Amherd Viola Patricia Amherd (born 7 June 1962) is a Swiss politician who served as a Member of the Swiss Federal Council from 2019 to 2025, and as President of the Swiss Confederation for 2024 between 1 January and 31 December. She was the head of the ...

(born 1962), politician, elected to the

Federal Council of Switzerland The Federal Council is the federal Cabinet (government), cabinet of the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. Its seven members also serve as the collective head of state and Head of government, government of Switzerland. Since World War II, the F ...

2018 * Romed Wyder (born 1967), filmmaker, established in Geneva since 1989 IMDb Database
retrieved 3 February 2019 *

Gianni Infantino Giovanni Vincenzo Infantino (); (born 23 March 1970) is a Swiss-Italian Association football, football Administrator (business), administrator and the president of the FIFA, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) since 26 Febr ...

(born 1970), a Swiss–Italian football administrator, president of

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

* Manfred Elsig (born 1970), Professor of International Relations at the World Trade Institute of the

University of Bern The University of Bern (, , ) is a public university, public research university in the Switzerland, Swiss capital of Bern. It was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the canton of Bern. It is a comprehensive university offering a br ...

* Rachel Harnisch (born 1973) operatic soprano.

Sport

* Charly In-Albon (born 1957), a retired footballer, over 300 club caps and 40 for

Lucia Näfen-Zehnder Lucia-Maria Näfen-Zehnder, née Näfen (born 25 November 1962), is a Swiss ski mountaineer, long-distance runner and politician of the Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland Upper Valais (CVPO). Näfen is married with three children, ...

(born 1962), ski mountaineer, runner and politician; lives in Brig * Silvan Zurbriggen (born 1981), a retired Swiss World Cup alpine ski racer * Jeanine Cicognini (born 1986), a badminton player who now represents Italy * Benjamin Weger (born 1989), biathlete, three-times olympian *

Nico Hischier Nico Hischier (born 4 January 1999) is a Swiss professional ice hockey centre and captain of the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League (NHL). Hischier made his professional debut in his native Switzerland in 2015, spending time both i ...

(born 1999), ice hockey forward

References

External links

Brig-Glis municipal website
* {{Authority control Municipalities of Valais Populated places on the Rhône Cultural property of national significance in Valais Populated riverside places in Switzerland